The patents, purchased from New Jersey-based research services firm Nectid, cover a range of delivery platforms for gastro-retentive, abuse-deterrent, combination and once-daily drugs.
Company chief operating officer Ram Sesha told in-Pharmatechnologist that pain and abuse-susceptible medications, including multi-drug combination treatments, are particularly in need of new delivery methods.
He said that: “Pain, except in cases of acute pains...is invariably treated with more than one drug,” citing fibromyalgia and neuropathic pain as conditions requiring “a combination of two medications over extended period of time.”
Despite this need, Sesha continued, to date there is no once-daily combination drug that is approved for the treatment of long-term pain indications.
He went on to say that: “Similarly though there is an approved drug that is purported to be abuse deterrent, it is neither once daily nor a combination of two or more drugs.”
“PRTT platform technologies enable delivering such combinations not just from abuse deterrent platform but also as a once daily dosage form,” continued Sesha, adding that the firm expects to commercialise such products in the next few years.
He also said that while PRTT’s business plan includes the possibility of out-licensing IP and techs, particularly in non analgesic markets, “[the firm] is not a contract manufacturer and thus all of our in-house developments are for commercializing our own product candidates.”
While details of the deal were not disclosed, an official Pro-Tect statement said it “includes a pain project that is already under discussion for a potential licensing agreement for a multinational pharmaceutical manufacturer.”