Avectas Announces Issuance of U.S. Patent for Cell Engineering Technology by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

DUBLIN, April 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Avectas announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued U.S. Patent No. 10,612,042, which is central to the company's cell engineering technology, Solupore^® and expands Avectas' global Intellectual Property portfolio. This patent covers an approach for delivering a payload, such as a protein and/or nucleic acid, across a plasma membrane of a cell.

Avectas is a cell engineering technology business developing a unique delivery platform to enable the ex-vivo manufacture of gene-modified cell therapy products, which retain high in-vivo functionality. Avectas' Solupore^® cell engineering technology has been developed to address challenges encountered with the manufacture of autologous and allogeneic cellular therapy products. 

"Our patented cell engineering platform leverages a new mechanism to permeabilize the cell membrane and to enable the delivery of therapeutic molecules into the cell, enabling the production of functionally fitter cells to recognise and attack cancers," said Michael Maguire, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Avectas. "This granted patent is an important component in our IP portfolio, protecting value in our cell engineering platform. We look forward to continuing the development of Solupore^® to address the tremendous need for a new cell engineering technology for next-generation cell therapies." 

This announcement comes at a time when Avectas has recently announced several collaborations this year. In March, Avectas announced a collaboration with Vycellix to advance next-generation solutions for the optimized manufacture of cell and gene therapies. In February, Avectas entered a Collaboration agreement with the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM) based in Toronto, Canada to accelerate the translation of Avectas' non-viral cell engineering platform (Solupore^®) into the clinic and in January Avectas joined the new NK Cell Centre of Excellence at Karolinska Institute as a partner. 

About Solupore^®: 

Solupore^® is a non-viral, cell engineering technology that permeabilizes the target cell membrane and allows efficient transport of cargo into cells whilst retaining very high levels of cell viability and functionality. The Solupore^® technology is designed for use with mRNA, DNA, and proteins, including gene-editing tools such as CRISPR and combination thereof. Solupore^® achieves excellent engineering efficiencies for delivery of these payloads to primary T cells and NK cells for immuno-oncology and gene editing applications. 

About Avectas:

Avectas is a cell engineering technology business developing a unique delivery platform to enable the ex-vivo manufacture of our partners' gene-modified cell therapy products, which will retain high in-vivo functionality. Our vision is to be a leading non-viral cell engineering technology provider, integrated into manufacturing processes for multiple autologous and allogeneic therapies, commercialized through development and license agreements. For more information, please visit the Company's website at www.avectas.com