Another patent for Psivida's portolio

Perth nano-biotech company Psivida (ASX:PSD) continues to add new patents to its bulging BioSilicon portfolio, and investors aren’t complaining.

Psivida, the top performer among ASX-listed biotech companies over the past 12 months, announced today that its UK subsidiary PsiMedica had been granted a further patent on orally administrable, slow-release pharmaceutical products nano-packaged in BioSilicon.

PSivida’s portfolio now comprises 18 granted patents and more than 80 patent applications, in 21 patent families.

Australian Patent No 771329 describes the delivery of therapeutic drugs in tablets, capsules pellets or powders made of porous and polycrystalline BioSilicon.

The company’s press release said many orally administered drugs have special coatings to protect the active material during transit through the highly acid environment of the stomach.

Unprotected protein and peptide therapeutics cannot be delivered orally because the gastrointestinal tract rapidly breaks down proteins. Highly insoluble drugs also pose problems when delivered orally, because they are poorly absorbed in the gut.

The company says BioSilicon addresses these problems – it does not dissolve in acidic solutions, and it can be processed to undergo controlled biodegradation to optimise the delivery and absorption of drugs.

Microelectronic chip-based BioSilicon devices could be programmed to deliver drugs selectively to specific regions of the gut.

Psivida says it is pursuing a two-stage development strategy in oral drug delivery, beginning with biodegradable slow-release tablets, and then moving into “smart” tablets that will use micro-electronic systems to release drugs at controlled rates in selected locations in the body.