Rhenovia Files Two Patent Applications for RHEpatch™

Rhenovia Pharma has announced that it has filed two patent applications for RHEpatch™, Rhenovia’s electronic transdermal patch for people suffering from chronic diseases.

RHEpatch was originally designed to optimize the delivery of drugs to patients suffering from diseases of the nervous system. However, Rhenovia now expects it to have a considerable impact across the entire health sector.

Its principal aim is to control dosing, treatment time and duration, day and night, for up to seven drugs administered to each patient. Control is achieved through a built-in electronic system pre-programmed by the doctor.

RHEpatch thus provides better control over the delivery of several drugs prescribed as a polytherapy, especially for the elderly.

RHEpatch is also designed to deliver the combinations of compounds needed to treat complex nervous system diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.

It will also automatically control the administration of drugs, thus reducing the risk of patients forgetting. This facilitates treatment of patients with reduced mobility and prevents confused patients from taking repeated doses of drugs.

RHEpatch has many advantages over existing transdermal patches, which have drug release systems that are mainly passive (the treatment begins when the patch is put on and ends when it is taken off).

RHEpatch also indicates the amount of product actually delivered and the amount remaining in the patch.

In addition, unlike other transdermal patches, Rhenovia’s technology allows closely-controlled administration of several drugs through the same vector.

“This unique drug delivery device is going to have a major impact on the way medicines are used in the coming years,” said Dr. Serge Bischoff, president and CEO of Rhenovia. “It will enable doctors and nurses to manage treatment regimes more efficiently and more safely, as well as significantly improving patients’ quality of life.”

“RHEpatch is going to improve the treatment of diseases as complex as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s, which require polytherapies for optimal efficacy,” said Professor Michel Baudry, vice-president and scientific director of Rhenovia.

“Delivering several drugs to the right place at the right time and in the right dose is a major challenge,” said Michel Faupel, vice-president of Rhenovia and the designer of RHEpatch.

Faupel continued, “Up to now, no one has succeeded in doing that satisfactorily. Yet this kind of approach is essential for ensuring effective long-term treatment of chronic diseases. By combining multitherapies derived from Rhenovia’s simulators with the controlled administration afforded by this intelligent patch, Rhenovia is convinced it can meet that challenge.”

Rhenovia’s industrial partner, Portmann Instruments AG, also contributed to the design of RHEpatch.

Portmann Instruments, which is based in Biel-Benken, Switzerland, is specialized in high-precision instrumentation and manufactures customized components for RHEpatch.

With the completion of a three-year EU Eurostars partnership program between Rhenovia and Portmann Instruments, RHEpatch has now reached the pre-industrialization prototype stage.

Following technological and biological proof-of-concept studies, Rhenovia is now looking for pharmaceutical, industrial and financial partners to move on to the industrialization and out-licensing stage.