Biotic Labs: Driving the Innovation of High Performance Drug Deliveryby Dr. Dr. Erik Pierstorff
Biotic Laboratories, Inc. (“Biotic”) was formed in July 2008 to commercialize technology in the area of implantable drug-eluting (releasing) films for the treatment of cancer, infectious, and autoimmune diseases. Current treatments for these indications have high costs and toxic side effects, presenting significant unmet medical needs. Biotic seeks to enhance patient quality of life by substantially decreasing the debilitating side effects of systemically administered toxic drugs, and significantly decreasing the dosing and frequency of drug administration. Biotic further aims to reduce medical costs by packaging and delivering therapeutics in its low cost drug delivery system.
The company’s core technology relates to a proprietary, implantable thin-film technology for the controlled release of a wide variety of pharmaceuticals. Biotic retains the intellectual property on the manufacture and application of these proprietary thin films in the form of a PCT filing. Biotic’s drug delivery system utilizes a polymer that is highly inert, non-toxic, and has been used in the body as a coating for implanted medical devices for over 20 years. This technology is unique because the company has perfected a “nano-scale” self-assembly process for making porous ultra-thin films that not only have chemical and biological inertness, but are capable of slowly releasing drugs into the body. Biotic has targeted two initial areas for commercialization: a localized release of chemotherapy drugs for the treatment of breast cancer margin clearance, and the long term systemic release of low levels of interferon for the treatment of chronic Hepatitis C infections. Biotic Laboratories’ technology aims to reduce both the cost and toxicity of these treatments.
While the arena of drug delivery advances at an extremely rapid rate, competitive advantage becomes a critical component of product development. Biotic’s team feels that its technology surpasses current systems in its stability due to the well characterized physical properties of the polymer, its biocompatibility due to the extensive in vivo safety data accumulated over the past two decades, its multi-drug release ability as demonstrated during Biotic’s technology development, and its low cost production due to the materials and manufacturing processes used. Biotic’s microfilms are also highly versatile because they can be used either as stand-alone implantable devices or as coatings on other devices. Biotic’s business and product development is facilitated by strategic partnerships and alignments with drug manufacturers who can leverage Biotic’s technology to improve pharmacologic properties of their drugs.
The establishment of Biotic Labs involved a collaboration between Co-Founders Dean Ho and Erik Pierstorff from Northwestern University, and Co-Founders Genhong Cheng and Edward Chow from UCLA. Biotic established its site of operations at the Momentum Biosciences, LLC facility in Culver City, CA in order to perform its early stage proof of concept and to develop its technology. During this time, the company established a collaboration with the lab of Dr. Paul Dempsey at UCLA and received a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Science Foundation. Biotic is currently actively involved in fundraising for its next round of financing.
Erik Pierstorff, Ph.D.
Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Biotic Laboratories
For further information contact:
Biotic Laboratories
info@bioticlabs.com
(310) 649-5655
www.bioticlabs.com
