Access Pharmaceuticals, Inc, a biopharmaceutical company leveraging its proprietary drug-delivery platforms to develop treatments in areas of oncology, cancer supportive care and diabetes, has entered into a pre-licensing feasibility agreement with a leading biopharmaceutical company to develop an oral formulation of an undisclosed prostate cancer compound utilizing its proprietary vitamin B-12-based CobOral Drug Delivery Technology. Access will develop CobOral formulations for testing by the biopharma company. Though the terms of the agreement have not been disclosed, Access indicated that any successful formulation developed will be jointly owned by the Parties and subject to a subsequent full licensing agreement.

“This is another important step for Access as we now have several ongoing collaborations, pre-licensing agreements and continued interest from additional top-tier partners for our CobOral Drug Delivery Technology,” said Phillip Wise, vice president for Business Development and Strategy, Access Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He continued, “Having recently rebranded our vitamin B-12 oral-delivery technology to CobOral has helped raise our visibility with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in search for a novel broad-based oral drug-delivery technology and we anticipate moving forward on various applications of our CobOral platform.”

Access continues to make significant progress with its proprietary CobOral delivery technology. Access’ CobOral product development programme initially focused on the oral delivery of insulin and human growth hormone (hGH), two peptides which currently can only be given by injection. Since presenting promising results at a major conference in mid-2008, Access has made substantial improvements to the formulation technology. An improved CobOral insulin-containing nanoparticle formulation delivered orally provided a pharmacological response (lowering of blood glucose levels in an animal model of diabetes) equivalent to greater than 80% of that achieved by insulin delivered subcutaneously. This represents a substantial oral bioavailability, indicating that this formulation has potential for clinical development and ultimate commercialization. Adaptation of this technology has provided a CobOral hGH formulation that has demonstrated good efficacy, represented by more than 25% improvement in weight gain, when given orally in an established animal model.

Access Pharmaceuticals is an emerging biopharmaceutical company that develops and commercializes proprietary products for the treatment and supportive care of cancer patients.