CombiGene has filed a priority patent application with the UK Patent Office for patent protection for the vectors developed within the Company’s lipodystrophy project CGT2. The filing of this patent application paves the way for global patent protection for CGT2, which is of great importance for protecting key functions of CGT2 during the further development and commercialization.
The CGT2 project aims to develop a gene therapeutic treatment for partial lipodystrophy. The project was inlicensed from Lipigon Pharmaceuticals AB 2019 and is in early preclinical development with a focus on design and testing of gene therapy vectors.
”Since we licensed the project from Lipigon 2019, the pace has accelerated, and we are now beginning to see the first fruits of this work. The filing of the patent application is an early milestone in this very exciting project,” says Annika Ericsson, Senior Project Manager at CombiGene.
About lipodystrophy
Lipodystrophy is a rare disorder that is characterized by abnormal distribution of fat in the body. Patients suffer from lipoatrophy, which means that body fat is lost. In the absence of normal body fat different organs begin to accumulate fat, which subsequently leads to serious metabolic complications, among them, extreme insulin resistance, hypertriglyceridemia (elevated levels of the blood fat triglyceride) and hepatic steatosis (fatty liver disease).
There are currently a few treatments that can alleviate the symptoms of lipodystrophy, but no form of therapy that is targeted directly at the fundamental cause of the disorder. For patients suffering from partial lipodystrophy there are currently no treatments whatsoever.