OKYO Pharma Ltd said it has been issued a US patent for its dry eye disease candidate (DED) OK-101.
The key claim in the application covered the drug’s use to treat neuropathic pain.
“The pain-reducing feature of OK-101 offers the opportunity that our drug can potentially treat neuropathic corneal pain, a severe, chronic and debilitating disease for which there are no approved commercial treatments currently available," said Raj Patil, OKYO’s chief scientific officer.
"We are also excited about the pain-relieving potential of a dry eye drug because a considerable number of dry eye patients suffer from ocular pain. OK-101 could provide pain relief in addition to reducing ocular inflammation in the millions of patients suffering from DED."
The full title granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office was Methods and Systems for Designing and/or Characterizing Soluble Lipidated Ligand Agents.
Last week OKYO was given the green light to take its dry eye disease treatment directly into a phase II clinical trial.
The Food & Drug Administration’s decision to fast-track the OK-101 in this manner will accelerate the approval process, the company said.
OK-101 is being developed as a long-acting anti-inflammatory drug candidate. The technology is based around G protein-coupled receptors typically found on immunological cells present in the eye.
They act like an inbox for messages in the form of light energy, peptides that fight bacteria and promote wound healing, lipids, sugars, and proteins.
Currently, the two leading products for dry eye disease are Xiidra, created by Novartis (NYSE: NVS), and Restasis, developed by Abbvie (NYSE:ABBV) (Abbvie (NYSE:ABBV)) (Abbvie (Abbvie (NYSE:ABBV))) (NYSE: ABBV).