Middlesex Sciences: Removing the doubts

Biologic therapies give rise to their own concerns about safety and practicality even as they create new hopes for progress against intractable diseases. Middlesex Sciences is attempting to address these concerns with two technologies: a microparticle system to improve the clinical utility of biologics, and a process for viral inactivation aimed at enhancing the safety of blood-derived products such as immune globulin and factors VIII and IX for hemophilia.

Middlesex's microparticle system is intended to decrease the frequency of injections required for protein and peptide molecules, which normally degrade if taken orally and so must be given intravenously or intramuscularly. Such a system, if proven clinically effective, would lower costs and could result in other benefits, such as improved patient compliance. The gold standard would be a single injection that could establish and maintain a clinically effective dose for several weeks or longer...