Rhenovia Files Two Patent Applications for RHEpatch, an Electronic Transdermal Patch for Controlled Drug Delivery
RHEpatch was originally designed to optimize the delivery of drugs to patients suffering from diseases of the nervous system. However, Rhenovia now expects it to have a considerable impact across the entire health sector. Its principal aim is to control dosing, treatment time and duration, day and night, for up to seven drugs administered to each patient. Control is achieved through a built-in electronic system pre-programmed by the doctor. RHEpatch thus provides better control over the delivery of several drugs prescribed as a polytherapy, especially for the elderly.
RHEpatch is also designed to deliver the combinations of compounds needed to treat complex nervous system diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. It will also automatically control the administration of drugs, thus reducing the risk of patients forgetting. This facilitates treatment of patients with reduced mobility and prevents confused patients from taking repeated doses of drugs.
RHEpatch has many advantages over existing transdermal patches, which have drug release systems that are mainly passive (the treatment begins when the patch is put on and ends when it is taken off). RHEpatch also indicates the amount of product actually delivered and the amount remaining in the patch. In addition, unlike other transdermal patches, Rhenovia’s technology allows closely-controlled administration of several drugs through the same vector.
“This unique drug delivery device is going to have a major impact on the way medicines are used in the coming years,” said Dr. Serge Bischoff, president and CEO of Rhenovia. “It will enable doctors and nurses to manage treatment regimes more efficiently and more safely, as well as significantly improving patients’ quality of life.”
“RHEpatch is going to improve the treatment of diseases as complex as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s, which require polytherapies for optimal efficacy,” said Professor Michel Baudry, vice-president and scientific director of Rhenovia.
“Delivering several drugs to the right place at the right time and in the right dose is a major challenge,” said Michel Faupel, vice-president of Rhenovia and the designer of RHEpatch. “Up to now, no one has succeeded in doing that satisfactorily. Yet this kind of approach is essential for ensuring effective long-term treatment of chronic diseases. By combining multitherapies derived from Rhenovia’s simulators with the controlled administration afforded by this intelligent patch, Rhenovia is convinced it can meet that challenge.”
Rhenovia’s industrial partner, Portmann Instruments AG, also contributed to the design of RHEpatch. Portmann Instruments, which is based in Biel-Benken, Switzerland, is specialized in high-precision instrumentation and manufactures customized components for RHEpatch.
With the completion of a three-year EU Eurostars partnership program between Rhenovia and Portmann Instruments, RHEpatch has now reached the pre-industrialization prototype stage. Following technological and biological proof-of-concept studies, Rhenovia is now looking for pharmaceutical, industrial and financial partners to move on to the industrialization and out-licensing stage.
About Rhenovia Pharma SAS
Rhenovia Pharma SAS is a private biotechnology company specialized in the development and optimization of treatments for Alzheimer’s and other diseases of the central and peripheral nervous systems. Over the past few years, Rhenovia has become a fully-fledged research-and-development company possessing a range of drug discovery and development technologies, an emerging pipeline of drug candidates, a unique prototype for controlled transdermal drug delivery and a high-performance analytical technique for purifying proteins that serves to identify biomarkers of drug efficacy.
Rhenovia is a world leader in biosimulation of the nervous system applied to the drug discovery process. Its unique modeling technology makes it possible to reproduce on a computer the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the brain involved in learning, memory and a wide range of other brain functions that are impaired in neurological diseases such as epilepsy, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s, as well as in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and depression. As part of its RHEDDOS(TM) (Rhenovia Drug Development Optimization Services) package, the company conducts biosimulation studies for biopharmaceutical companies that want to prolong the life cycle of their drugs, develop new combinations of medicines, or identify or validate new targets for therapeutic compounds. Rhenovia also has activities in the areas of drug safety, nutrition, ecotoxicity and neurotoxicity.
Rhenovia is based in Mulhouse, France and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States and currently employs 20 people in France, Switzerland, Germany and the USA. It has its head office in Mulhouse, where it was founded in 2007 to develop innovative solutions aimed at optimizing the drug discovery and development process for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Since it was founded, it has raised a total of six million euros from commercial contracts, French and European research projects, public tenders, private investors (Alsace Business Angels, SODIV), public funding and seed capital funds, in addition to which it relies on the equity of its founding shareholders and other Rhenovia staff members (83 per cent of its total capital).
About Rhenovia Inc.
Rhenovia Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rhenovia Pharma. It was incorporated in Delaware in 2012 and its activities are concentrated in Boston, Massachusetts and Los Angeles, California. Rhenovia Inc. was set up to extend Rhenovia Pharma’s biosimulation services and partnerships to North America. Over the medium term, the company will also have the task of developing and commercializing the company’s pipeline of drug candidates identified using its biosimulation approach.
For further information, go to: http://www.rhenovia.com
Mark Tidmarsh
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