With profound demonstrations of clinical benefit and single-agent-efficacy, as well as overall safety, Epeius Biotech continues to lead the field of clinical gene medicine with the advent of pathotropic (or disease-seeking) targeting. These latest EU patents follow on the heels of a major clinical patent that was recently awarded in the USA for targeted gene delivery in vivo. Together these clinical patents provide additional intellectual property protection for the platform of highly advanced biotechnologies embodied in the company's leading anti-cancer agent Rexin-G -- the first and so far only tumor-targeted gene delivery system that has been successfully validated in the clinic.
Based on recent breakthroughs in tumor-targeting and nanotechnology, a new generation of powerful biological anti-cancer agents that are exceedingly precise and highly selective for diseased tissues is currently in clinical development. Anti-cancer agents such as Rexin-G can be delivered by simple intravenous infusion, yet are programmed to seek-out and accumulate selectively in primary and metastatic lesions that have spread throughout the body, delivering a tumor-killing gene while sparing normal cells and tissues. Representing the world's first targeted genetic medicine proven to be both safe and effective in the clinic, Rexin-G is commercially available in the Philippines -- for use in all solid tumors that are refractory to standard chemotherapy -- and is currently in clinical trials in the USA for several types of cancer.
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"A key conclusion of our study is that even very closely related isolates of A. baumannii can differ significantly in the set of resistance genes that they carry," said Adams. "It is known that resistance genes can be shared between bacteria (horizontal gene transfer), and it appears that this is a frequent event, with genes entering a genome and being deleted even across a single outbreak."
"We used to think-you treat this bacteria with this drug-but now we know that you have to look more carefully not just at the bacteria but at each one's genetic characteristics," said Adams. "This is an argument for targeted therapy in infectious disease because you want to select an antibiotic that will be effective against the particular genetic characteristics of the bug that's causing the infection."
The scientists also found that each isolate has a somewhat different set of genes.
"About three-fourths of the genes are shared by all the isolates, while the remainder are unique to different subsets," said Adams. "We identified 475 genes that are shared by all six clinical isolates of A. baumannii but are not present in a closely related Acinetobacter species that does not cause infections. These genes merit further study to help figure out what makes A. baumannii able to live in association with humans and cause disease."
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