Singapore- Sorrento Therapeutics announced that it has acquired the Sofusa lymphatic delivery technology platform from Kimberly-Clark Corporation for targeted biopharmaceuticals, particularly, the immune checkpoint inhibitors (such as anti-PD-1, CTLA4, CD47 antibodies) and other I-O antibodies.

Pioneered by inventor Dr. Russell F. Ross and the innovation team at Kimberly-Clark, the Sofusa technology consists of proprietary nano-structured microneedles designed to access the lymphatic capillaries just below the epidermis. In a recent Phase I human study, the Sofusa system has successfully demonstrated the ability to precisely tune the pharmacokinetic profile of sumatriptan to give both rapid onset and an extended treatment duration for the acute treatment of migraine.

“Sofusa technology allows pharmacological targeting of the lymphatics allowing new treatment strategies for cancer and chronic inflammatory conditions,” said Dr. Eva Sevick-Muraca, Ph.D., Professor and the Nancy and Rich Kinder Distinguished Chair of Cardiovascular Disease Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center's Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM).  She is a biomedical engineer who has pioneered lymphatic imaging in humans and preclinical models of human disease and has been an advisor to Sofusa.  Recently, her group presented preclinical work at AACR delivering an anti-CTLA4 mAb using the Sofusa device in a mouse model of metastatic breast cancer.