ACCESS PHARMACEUTICALS, INC. (OTC Bulletin Board: ACCP), a biopharmaceutical company leveraging its proprietary drug-delivery platforms to develop treatments in areas of oncology, cancer supportive care and diabetes, announced it has entered into an agreement with a major global pharmaceutical company to test Access' oral insulin formulation based upon its proprietary vitamin B-12-based CobOral™ Drug Delivery Technology. Access will provide CobOral insulin to the pharmaceutical company. Access anticipates completion and delivery of its CobOral insulin formulation to the pharmaceutical company by the end of the month.
"We continue executing on our broad strategy for unlocking the value of the CobOral and CobaCyte platform technologies through formulation agreements with high-quality partners," said Jeffrey Davis, President and CEO, Access Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He continued, "We are confident in our technology's ability to improve the existing standard of administering insulin. The CobOral technology has significant potential in creating oral versions of currently marketed injectables, while providing our partners a valuable patent life-cycle management tool that can secure the IP extension on existing products. Additionally, we believe that successful testing of the oral insulin product can lead to development programs on additional injectable drugs."
Access recently announced an agreement with a biopharmaceutical company to develop an oral formulation of its widely-marketed injectable for prostate cancer. In addition, Access has filed supplementary patents covering the application of both platforms, CobOral (oral delivery) and CobaCyte (disease targeting), with most of the top 100 currently-marketed, injectable drugs. Access continues seeking additional collaborations for oral versions of the various injectable drugs.
Access' CobOral product development program initially focused on the oral delivery of insulin and human growth hormone (hGH), two peptides which currently can only be given by injection. Since presenting promising results at a major conference in mid-2008, Access has made substantial improvements to the formulation technology. An improved CobOral insulin-containing nanoparticle formulation delivered orally provided a pharmacological response (lowering of blood glucose levels in an animal model of diabetes) equivalent to greater than 80% of that achieved by insulin delivered subcutaneously. This represents a substantial oral bioavailability, indicating that this formulation has potential for clinical development and ultimate commercialization. Adaptation of this technology has provided a CobOral hGH formulation that has demonstrated good efficacy, represented by more than 25% improvement in weight gain, when given orally in an established animal model.
This press release contains certain statements that are forward-looking within the meaning of Section 27a of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements include those relating to: our cash burn rate, clinical trial plans and timelines and clinical results for ProLindac, MuGard, Thiarabine and Cobalamin and other product candidates, our ability to achieve clinical and commercial success and our ability to successfully develop marketed products. These statements are subject to numerous risks, including but not limited to Access' need to obtain additional financing in order to continue the clinical trial and operations and to the risks detailed in Access' Annual Reports on Form 10-K and other reports filed by Access with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Source: Access Pharmaceuticals, Inc