Novosom AG announced that it has been granted patents for both the USA and Europe for its Drug Delivery technology Smarticles. Smarticles are fully charge reversible liposomes for the in vivo drug delivery of nucleotides like siRNA or antisense to targeted cells.

The US patent is entitled "Amphoteric liposomes and their use" and the US patent number is US 7371404. At the same time, the European Patent Office granted patent number EP 1363601 with the same title.

Elias Papatheodorou, CEO of Novosom, said, "We are delighted to be granted these US and European patents for our world-class RNAi and siRNA drug delivery system Smarticles. In addition to the patents already granted Novosom, this forms a part of the strong intellectual property position Novosom is building in the growing field of nucleic-acid drugs based on RNA interference."

"Novosom's technology has been at the forefront of providing a safer, more efficient delivery method available for in vivo delivery of nucleotides to targeted cells. The broad grant of this family of patents in key jurisdictions reflects the originality of our approach in the field of oligonucleotide delivery. Both offices have accepted wide claim language which secures comprehensive protection of the amphoteric liposome concept irrespective of any chemical representation for novosom AG and its licensees," said Dr. Steffen Panzner, Founder and CSO of Novosom

In March ProNAi, a collaboration partner of Novosom announced the successful completion of the IND for the drug candidate PNT2258 which uses the Smarticle delivery technology for a novel class of oligonucleotide therapeutics against multiple cancer types.

Novosom is working with its partners to develop unique antisense, DNAi and siRNA based therapeutics with a current focus in inflammation, oncology and liver diseases. Novosom's Smarticles liposomal vectors allow partners to deliver their active substance (siRNA, antisense, decoy etc) inside the cell either for topical or systemic applications.