DiaKine Wins Patent

Key Patent Awarded for DiaKine Therapeutics’ Anti-Inflammatory Drugs

Drugs under development by DiaKine Therapeutics to potentially cure diabetes and reverse its complications have been granted a U.S. patent, the company announced at the 26th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. Patent number 7,247,630 covers novel tricyclic compounds that regulate cytokines. Cytokines may mistakenly attack normal organs and tissue and cause diseases such as diabetes and related complications such as kidney and eye disease.

“These drugs were designed to prevent or treat diseases, such as type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, that are affected by intracellular cytokine signaling,” said Dr. Jerry Nadler, DiaKine’s Chief Scientific Officer. “Our research has shown that by selectively modulating certain cytokines with our current library of methylxanthine-based drugs, type 1 diabetes can be prevented or even reversed. This library provides for compounds with a new, non-xanthine skeleton.”

“This patent is an important asset in our portfolio of intellectual property,” said Keith Ignotz, President, and CEO of DiaKine. “It provides for novel therapeutic compounds, pharmaceutical compositions and methods that can limit the inflammatory, or anti-inflammatory, response of a patient without using an immune suppressant or ‘sledge-hammer’ approach to treatment.”

The patent states that the tricyclic compounds are useful for the treatment or prevention of symptoms or manifestations associated with diseases or disorders affected by intracellular cytokine signaling. Diseases claimed in the patent include: chronic inflammatory disease, chronic intestinal inflammation, arthritis, psoriasis, asthma, autoimmune disorder, type-1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, uveitis, inflammatory bowel disease, lupus disorders, and acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease.

DiaKine therapies may improve the function of insulin-producing cells and preserve any that remain in the pancreas after initial diagnoses, thereby halting the progression of newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes. Those patients with established diabetes may be relieved from the lifelong burden that results from this disease by providing them with new insulin producing cells through either transplantation or regeneration and modulating the immune system with these new medications. Protecting new insulin-producing cells from a new immunological attack may reverse diabetes and prevent the resulting complications associated with this dreadful disease.

About DiaKine --

DiaKine Therapeutics, Inc. is a development-stage company commercializing novel immune modulators initially targeting the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases such as diabetes and related complications. These new drugs regulate cytokines, part of the body’s immune system, which mistakenly attack tissue and cause inflammation. The Company designed its first product, IsletLife-LSF Media 1, to improve the viability and insulin producing capabilities of harvested islet cells prior to transplant. IsletLife-LSF Media thus can potentially improve the success rate of the procedure. Additional therapeutics under development by DiaKine include: adjunct therapy to islet cell transplants, halting the progression of type 1 diabetes in newly diagnosed adults, treatment and prevention of Latent Autoimmune Diabetes of Adults (LADA), treatment and prevention of insulin requiring type 2 diabetic, treatment and prevention of diabetes complications. For more information, visit www.diakine.com.