GeneOne Life Science gets patent for coated microneedle tech in China

South Korea’s biopharmaceutical company GeneOne Life Science Inc. on Tuesday said it received a patent from the China National Intellectual Property Office for its self-limiting electrospray deposition technology (SLED), the core know-how for the transdermal drug delivery system coated microneedles.

The company's patent is also pending in the US.

Developed with researchers from Rutgers University of New Jersey, SLED is the process of coating microneedles with drugs for effective delivery of transdermal drugs.

“SLED uniformly transfers the coating material to all types of surfaces including irregular ones,” a company source said. “In addition to DNA, it also delivers various medicines, proteins or biopharmaceuticals to a microneedle surface without loss of function or structure.”

GeneOne secured exclusive rights to all biological uses of this patent.

“Considering the potential uses of the microneedle platform in various fields including vaccines, development of coated microneedles is of critical importance,” CEO Young-Keun Park said.

GeneOne confirmed that the low molecular immunomodulator GLS-1027 under development and hepatitis C vaccine were perfectly preserved in structure and coated on microneedles with high efficiency, GeneOne Chief Medical Officer Joel Maslow said, adding that SLED has many uses like limiting inflammation in implantable medical devices such as stents and prosthetic joints.

Write to Min-Su Han at hms@hankyung.com