Cobalamin is Access’ proprietary technology based upon the use of vitamin B12 for targeted delivery of drugs to disease sites and for oral drug delivery of drugs that otherwise have poor oral bioavailability. Access has focused its Cobalamin product development program on the oral delivery of insulin and human growth hormone, two peptides that currently can only be given by injection.
The company has multiple programs ongoing around use of its Cobalamin technology to facilitate oral absorption of pharmaceuticals, including previously announced collaborations with potential pharma and biotech partners. Access believes its Cobalamin technology could effectively deliver RNA therapy in an oral tablet instead of by injection.
David Nowotnik, senior vice president of research and development at Access, said: “Access scientists and collaborators have so far demonstrated in preclinical models that Cobalamin formulations are effective in achieving good oral drug delivery of charged peptides such as insulin and human growth hormone.
“These successes with molecules which share some of the same physical characteristics as siRNA would indicate that we should now be able to generate effective formulations of Cobalamin nanoparticles for delivery of siRNA. We know already from previous work that we can make cancer drugs more effective using the Cobalamin approach, and so we have a sound scientific basis for the future development of Cobalamin RNAi therapeutics.”