Paul Smith Associates
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worldwide exclusive licence for Spheritech

Spheritech, a bio-science company based at The Heath Business and Technical Park in Runcorn, has agreed a worldwide exclusive licence for its ground-breaking medical research to be developed into technologies which have applications in animal health.

The agreement is with UK-based Carus Animal Health, which is backed by its parent company, Kyoritsu Seiyaku, which is the largest distributor of animal health products in Japan. Carus is focused on identifying and developing novel technologies which have application in animal health.

Dr Don Wellings, Managing Director of SpheriTech, says the deal is a major development for his innovative SME research business that he launched in 2009. He previously worked for leading UK science and pharmaceutical businesses ICI, Zeneca and Avecia.

Dr Wellings says: “We’re delighted to have reached this agreement with Carus Animal Health and look forward to seeing our technology applied to develop new veterinary solutions. The agreement with Carus provides a terrific opportunity for commercialisation of our SpheriSome® technology and reflects our strategic plan of licensing the technology into a wide spectrum of application areas in human and animal healthcare, antimicrobial applications and as an alternative to microplastics.”
SpheriTech holds an extensive, global portfolio of pending and granted intellectual property rights including granted patents in the US, UK, Europe, China, Japan and Australia. The SpheriSome technology is a novel and unique process for self-assembly of fatty acid microparticles in water. These fatty acid microparticles can be used to immobilise or encapsulate a functional molecules including drugs, antimicrobial compounds, enzymes, antibodies, proteins and agrochemicals to name a few.

SpheriTech is focused primarily on human healthcare but the platform technologies have application in many other fields including personal care and home care products (and a granted US patent US 10500140B), replacement of microplastics, through to diagnostics and diverse applications such as domestic water purification and biodegradable agrochemical delivery systems.

SpheriTech’s technologies are currently the subject of two clinical trials, one covering a novel antimicrobial wound dressing at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and a second clinical trial covering an antimicrobial bandage contact lens at St Paul’s Eye Hospital, Liverpool, funded by the Medical Research Council.

SpheriSomes may be used to encapsulate the protein haemoglobin to form artificial red bloods cells, providing an artificial blood. SpheriTech has global patent rights on this including a granted US patent (US 104711308B). . This Haemoglobin Based Oxygen Carrier (HBOC) has been proven within an NHS facility in Manchester to maintain porcine kidneys outside the body. This HBOC, invented and developed at SpheriTech has been shown to be far more efficient than real blood at oxygen transport and carbon dioxide removal.

The initial focus here is to develop an artificial blood, or HBOC to maintain transplant organs allowing them to be stored for longer periods or even repair them outside the body. As the HBOC does not need blood typing, it may be used to replace donated blood in trauma and surgical operations. It is also suitable for use in wound healing via a treatment already proven and well used in the NHS.

Other intellectual property invented at SpheriTech is focused on regenerative medicine where tissue repair scaffolds for cartilage and bone repair have been proven in trials. These scaffolds for tissue repair have also been demonstrated for spinal cord repair, where the results have been published in peer reviewed journals.
https://spheritech.com/

For further information on SpheriTech contact:
Don Wellings (don.wellings@spheriTech.com)
Managing Director
SpheriTech Ltd
+44(0)1928 511331
+44(0)7540803320
https://spheritech.com/
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About The Heath
The Heath Business and Technical Park is a phenomenal regeneration success story. Formed in 2000, its owner and operator, SOG Ltd, has transformed a once single occupancy corporate facility into a thriving independent business park. The Heath now provides office and laboratory accommodation for more than 120 individual organisations, ranging from business services and IT specialists to those at the cutting edge of science, research and advanced manufacturing. Around 2,000 people are employed at the site. For further information, telephone 01928 515988 or visit www.theheath.com

For more information, please see:
www.theheath.com

PAUL SMITH ASSOCIATES
18th February 2021