Kipsbiopharma (hereafter referred to as Kipspharma) announced on the 18th that its subsidiary, Kipsbiomed, has filed a domestic patent application for the composition of its oral peptide drug delivery platform technology, Oraloid™.
With the patent application, attention is also focusing on the Oraloid platform, which has demonstrated high absorption rates in animal studies. There is growing interest in how this may impact the global competition among major pharmaceutical companies to develop oral obesity treatments.
According to the company, the patent relates to a platform technology for delivering peptide drugs orally. It covers the prevention of gastrointestinal degradation and the promotion of intestinal mucosal absorption for peptide-based drugs, such as insulin and GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1), which have traditionally been difficult to formulate as oral medications.
Kipspharma plans to sequentially file additional patent applications, starting with the composition patent, followed by patents for indications such as diabetes and obesity by the first half of next year, as well as manufacturing method patents and platform patents applicable to various peptide drugs. The company also intends to pursue international patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) to secure broad intellectual property rights.
Currently, drugs containing peptide ingredients such as GLP-1, which dominate the obesity treatment market, have the disadvantage of being poorly absorbed into the bloodstream when taken orally due to their large molecular size and low stability. As a result, leading obesity drugs such as Wegovy (Novo Nordisk) and Mounjaro (Eli Lilly) are currently sold as injectable formulations.
The Oraloid technology encapsulates peptides with calcium-based mineral components to prevent the drug from being degraded by gastric acid and digestive enzymes, thereby increasing absorption in the small intestine. According to the company, the structure of the mineral-particulated carrier itself enhances the drug's permeability, stability, and half-life.
Previously, Kipspharma conducted preclinical studies on an oral formulation of insulin, which has the largest molecular weight among peptides (approximately 5,800 Daltons), and disclosed both absolute and relative bioavailability (oral absorption rates). In studies on beagle dogs, the relative bioavailability of Oraloid compared to subcutaneous injection (SC) was 37.7%, and the absolute bioavailability compared to intravenous injection (IV) was 8.6%. The company reported minimal inter-individual variability and high reproducibility, demonstrating clinical utility.
In addition, in preclinical studies on primates, Oraloid achieved an absolute bioavailability of 6.7%. This result is more than 40 times higher than the absolute bioavailability (0.16%) of Novo Nordisk's Rybelsus, the only oral GLP-1 drug currently on the market, in primate studies.
Lee Yongkyu, CEO of Kipsbiomed, stated, "The Oraloid technology does not require additional modification or improvement of peptides, enabling process simplification, cost reduction, and suitability for mass production. This patent application will serve as an opportunity to broadly recognize the competitiveness of our platform."
He added, "Following the patent application, we are also working on follow-up activities such as publishing research papers to demonstrate the technical excellence of the Oraloid platform. With thorough preparation, we aim to register the patent as soon as possible and, in the long term, further advance the platform technology so that it can be applied to all peptide drugs on the market, in addition to obesity and diabetes."
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