SAN DIEGO, Oct. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Aethlon Medical, Inc. (OTCBB: AEMD), the pioneer in developing selective therapeutic filtration devices to address infectious disease, cancer and other life-threatening conditions, disclosed today that U.S. Patent number 8,288,172 was issued to the Company by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on October 16th, 2012. The patent entitled “Extracorporeal Removal of Microvesicular Particles,” provides Aethlon Medical the exclusive right to remove immune suppressive microvesicular particles, which include but are not limited to exosomes from the circulation of treated patients. A therapy able to inhibit or reduce the presence of cancer-secreted exosomes would address a significant unmet medical need in the effort to combat cancer.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090325/LA88762LOGO-b)
The Aethlon Hemopurifier®, which is a first-in-class medical device to treat Hepatitis C virus (HCV), has also been validated to capture exosomes underlying breast cancer, ovarian cancer, metastatic melanoma, colorectal cancer, and lymphoma during preclinical in vitro studies.
Cancer-secreted exosomes promote tumor progression by inducing apoptosis or programmed cell death of anti-cancer immune cells. As a result of inhibiting the immune response, exosomes increase the proliferation and spread of many forms of cancer. The particles also promote angiogenesis (essential for tumor survival and growth), increase tumor aggressiveness, and contribute to anti-cancer drug resistance. Researchers have recently discovered that cancer-secreted exosomes also seed the formation and spread of tumor metastasis.
“The issuance of this patent sets the stage for advancing our Hemopurifier® as an adjunct cancer therapy, and at the same time restricts the market emergence of other extracorporeal strategies to address this vital therapeutic target,” stated Jim Joyce, Chairman and CEO at Aethlon Medical.
In addition to granting Aethlon the exclusive right to remove microvesicular particles (including exosomes), the patent describes a method to bind and capture immune suppressive microvesicular particles from blood with a medical filtration device containing single or multiple affinity agents, which can include antibodies, aptamers, beads, lectins, proteins, or other compounds that adhere to microvesicles or exosomes, which are also referred to as epididimosomes, argosomes, exosome-like vesicles, microparticles, promininosomes, prostasomes, dexosomes, texosomes, dex, tex, archeosomes and oncosomes.
About Aethlon Medical
The Aethlon Medical mission is to create innovative medical devices that address unmet medical needs in cancer, infectious disease, and other life-threatening conditions. Our Aethlon ADAPT System is a revenue-stage technology platform that provides the basis for a new class of therapeutics that target the selective removal of disease enabling particles from the entire circulatory system. The Aethlon ADAPT product pipeline includes the Aethlon Hemopurifier® to address infectious disease and cancer; HER2osome to target HER2+ breast cancer, and a medical device being developed under a contract with DARPA that would reduce the incidence of sepsis in combat-injured soldiers and civilians. For more information, please visit www.aethlonmedical.com.
Certain statements herein may be forward-looking and involve risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements involve assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Aethlon Medical, Inc. to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such potential risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, that the company can successfully protect its intellectual property, that removal of exosomes from the human body will impact or lead to successful treatment of cancer, or that exosomes are the cause of tumor growth and progression, that the FDA will not approve the initiation of the Company’s clinical programs or provide market clearance of the company’s products, future human studies whether revenue or non-revenue generating of the Aethlon ADAPT system or the Aethlon Hemopurifier® as an adjunct therapy to improve patient responsiveness to established cancer or hepatitis C therapies or as a standalone cancer or hepatitis C therapy, the Company’s ability to raise capital when needed, the Company’s ability to complete the development of its planned products, the Company’s ability to manufacture its products either internally or through outside companies and provide its services, the impact of government regulations, patent protection on the Company’s proprietary technology, product liability exposure, uncertainty of market acceptance, competition, technological change, and other risk factors. In such instances, actual results could differ materially as a result of a variety of factors, including the risks associated with the effect of changing economic conditions and other risk factors detailed in the Company’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
Contacts:
James A. Joyce
Chairman and CEO
858.459.7800 x301
jj@aethlonmedical.com
Jim Frakes
Chief Financial Officer
858.459.7800 x300
jfrakes@aethlonmedical.com
Marc Robins
877.276.2467
mr@aethlonmedical.com
SOURCE Aethlon Medical, Inc.
