Serina's drug delivery platform is based on the water-soluble polymer, poly(2-alkyloxazoline), nicknamed "POZ". Drugs are connected to POZ in either a permanent or pro-drug (controlled release) fashion and can be specifically targeted to tissues that express certain receptors. This allows for fine tuning of the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of the drug.

While drug delivery scientists have attempted to develop POZ for decades in this fashion, Serina is the first and only company to patent and standardize scalable, high purity POZ suitably functionalized for attachment to pharmaceuticals. Serina is now advancing its lead drug candidate into IND-enabling studies and has developed a robust pipeline of back-up compounds.

A particularly vital need in the treatment of many diseases, cancer being a good example, is the ability to target therapeutically relevant compounds and doses to the disease site. Many drugs have toxicities that limit their use and cause side-effects outside the disease site.

Molecular Architecture

Two aspects of the molecular architecture of POZ suit it particularly well for targeted drug delivery. First, Serina has developed novel methods for introducing pendent groups along the POZ polymer backbone during formation of the polymer. POZ can be designed to contain large numbers of pendent groups and drugs can be linked to these pendent groups.

As a consequence, a complete "payload" can be delivered with a small amount of polymer. Use of a small amount of polymer has the advantage of reducing the mass and volume of material to be delivered to the patient and may result in reduction of side effects.

Secondly, Serina has invented novel chemistry for terminating the polymer chain with groups suitable for attaching a Targeting Group, folate. Serina's scientists have been able to create pendent POZ capable of loading high concentrations of drug while also having an active targeting ligand on the polymer terminus. SER-203 is an example of such a pendant POZ in which the drug is irinotecan - a very potent anti-cancer chemotherapeutic, and the targeting group is folate. The folate receptor is widely expressed in a variety of human cancers, thus SER-203 should be directly targeted to the cancer cell.