Diakine Wins New Patent
Drugs under development by Charlottesville-based DiaKine Therapeutics to potentially cure diabetes and reverse its complications have been granted a U.S. patent, the company announced at the 26th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. Patent number 7,247,630 covers novel tricyclic compounds that regulate cytokines. Cytokines may mistakenly attack normal organs and tissue and cause diseases such as diabetes and related complications such as kidney and eye disease.
“These drugs were designed to prevent or treat diseases, such as type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, that are affected by intracellular cytokine signaling,” said Dr. Jerry Nadler, DiaKine’s Chief Scientific Officer. “Our research has shown that by selectively modulating certain cytokines with our current library of methylxanthine-based drugs, type 1 diabetes can be prevented or even reversed. This library provides for compounds with a new, non-xanthine skeleton.”
“This patent is an important asset in our portfolio of intellectual property,” said Keith Ignotz, President, and CEO of DiaKine. “It provides for novel therapeutic compounds, pharmaceutical compositions and methods that can limit the inflammatory, or anti-inflammatory, response of a patient without using an immune suppressant or ’sledge-hammer’ approach to treatment.”
DiaKine Therapeutics, Inc. is a development-stage company commercializing novel immune modulators initially targeting the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases such as diabetes and related complications. For more information, visit www.diakine.com.
