This technology is a series of long-acting follicle stimulating hormone analogues for increasing fertility, egg production, and spermatogenesis in patients.
Human follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) is used to treat infertility by encouraging the maturation of eggs within the ovarian follicles of females, or by enhancing the production of sperm in males. However, due to its short half-life, current formulations of FSH require daily injections, often for 8-12 days, to induce ovulation. This process is timely, costly, and brings about many side effects, including local irritation and discomfort. As a result, treatment with current formulations of FSH results in poor patient compliance and reduced therapeutic efficacy. Thus, there is an unmet need for developing a series of long-acting FSHs for infertility treatment that require less frequent administration and can be customized to each patient’s needs.
This technology describes a series of synthetic FSH analogues with increased stability compared to current formulations of human FSH, leading to an increased serum half-life. These stable FSH analogues maintain the biological activity of FSH and are more easily purified than recombinant human FSH, increasing the efficiency of producing this therapeutic. Synthetic FSH can also be administered through a variety of routes including orally, via implant, or by injection, making it more adaptable to individual patient needs. Additionally, having a series of FSH analogues with varying half-lives enables clinicians to match a patient’s needs to the appropriate FSH analogue(s), providing individualized treatment with reduced side effects and fewer injections. As such, this technology provides a method for treating infertility that may improve patient compliance and success of infertility treatment compared with existing treatment methods.
The increased stability of this technology was demonstrated in rhesus monkeys, while the ability of synthetic FSH analogues to stimulate ovulation was validated in both mice and rats.
Patent Issued (US 7,081,446)
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IR 1143
Licensing Contact: Joan Martinez