e-therapeutics PLC (LON:ETX) said it is in the process of securing patents to protect its advances in liver gene silencing.
The application relates to GalNAc-conjugated short interfering RNA (siRNA). Additional patents will be sought for siRNA constructs that have been designed with potentially beneficial safety and potency profiles, it added.
e-therapeutics said its platform will provide it with a “significant competitive advantage” in the field RNA interference, also known as co-suppression or gene silencing.
The new constructs will include features to minimise off-target effects, reduce toxicity and enhance position-specific stabilisation chemistries to improve potency, investors were told.
The group said it expects to offer the new platform to potential business development partners from later this year.
“In line with our stated strategy of the capital raise of July 2020, we intend to advance high confidence candidates to in vivo studies to realise higher value through our partnerships,” it added.
e-therapeutics said it will combine the new RNAi technology platform with its long-standing computational and informatics expertise.
In doing so the drug developer believes it can harness the “many opportunities that the liver offers which have not yet been pursued by competitors”.
Its Genome-Associated Interaction Networks (GAINs) system will provide genetic validation of new targets.
In a statement, e-therapeutics chairman and chief executive, Ali Mortazavi, said: "In 2020, the speed and specificity of RNA-based therapies have been further demonstrated with RNA-based vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. GalNAc-conjugated siRNA is amongst the most powerful and validated technologies in the RNA field.
“This class of therapeutics has a safety and performance profile which is now well established with approved drugs and a large human safety and efficacy precedent. Our platform has the significant and added advantage of being able to leverage our expertise in network biology.”