IRISYS, LLC, a San Diego-based contract pharmaceutical development and manufacturing services company, announced that it has been issued U.S. Patent No. 11,033,530, Liposomal Anticancer Compositions. IRISYS scientists discovered a new way to deliver well-known anticancer therapeutics that may someday enable physicians to treat cancer patients more effectively for longer time periods and at higher doses with less overall toxicity.
Previous formulations of medications designed to attack cancerous cells often indiscriminately destroy normal healthy cells due to lack of targeting and specificity. This limits the amount of a chemotherapeutic agent that can be given to a patient. To reduce the side effects and toxicity of these treatments, scientists have tried multiple techniques. However, the efficacy of these formulations remains hindered by either the limited or non-specific release of the active drug.
The inventors of the IRISYS technology, Igor Nikoulin, Ph.D. (Vice President of Pharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing), and Yevgeniya Plekhov, M.S. (Senior Scientist), may have overcome the limitations of previous treatments by creating a new formulation of pH-targeted liposomal doxorubicin. As tumors develop, they create a more acidic environment in malignant tissues. In contrast, healthy tissues possess a much more neutral pH. By recognizing and utilizing the differential pH, they were able to evaluate different combinations of liposomes and salts that target the robust release of a weakly basic anticancer medication, in this case doxorubicin, to the more acidic tumor site, while still suppressing off-target systemic release. This results in the ability to effectively treat the cancerous cells at a specific site, while reducing the potential to destroy healthy cells and cause negative side effects.
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