Ocean Biomedical, Inc. (NASDAQ

OCEA) Announces Patent Allowance for Malaria Antibodies That Have Potential Capability to Protect Against Infection and Treat Severe Disease

Providence, RI, May 16, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ocean Biomedical (NASDAQ:OCEA) announced today that Scientific Co-founder Dr. Jonathan Kurtis, MD, PhD, has been granted a new patent for his malaria therapeutic antibody discoveries, targeted to both prevent malaria infection and treat severe malaria. Kurtis’ novel approach can cause parasite death at a key stage in the malarial cycle, triggering programmed cell death through apoptosis. This expands patent protection for Dr. Kurtis’ novel discoveries at a time when the most common strains of malaria are showing signs of growing resistance to current Artemisinin-based drugs.

This patent is adding to Ocean Biomedical’s global patent portfolio for discoveries with potential to impact major unmet medical needs in infectious disease, oncology, and fibrosis.

Dr. Jonathan Kurtis conducting research near Kisumu, Kenya, one of the world’s most malaria-infected regions

Ocean’s breakthrough approach to malaria prevention and treatment targets the blood-stage portion of the malaria lifecycle – the stage responsible for all clinical disease and death – and therefore has the potential of significantly greater efficacy compared with vaccines and therapeutics targeting other stages. Ocean is working to optimize the formulation of its vaccine and therapeutic antibody prior to IND submission and first-in-humans testing.

Addressing a Global Unmet Need

Malaria is the greatest single-agent killer of children on the planet, killing approximately 627,000 individuals in 2022. Artemisinin-based drug therapy remains the mainstay of treatment, but the spread of parasites resistant to this family of compounds threatens recent progress achieved by antimalarial campaigns and underscores the urgent need to identify new anti-malarial drugs.

Leadership Comments

“At each step in the process we are learning more about how this “kill switch” mechanism works to interrupt the malaria parasite’s lifecycle, and how we can exploit that on the prevention side and the treatment side,” commented Dr. Jake Kurtis, Scientific Co-founder of Ocean Biomedical, member of Ocean Biomedical’s board of directors and Chair of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University.

“The progress we have been able to make thus far in advancing novel targets is a testament to Ocean Biomedical’s innovative model and deep partnership with premier research institutions. We are hopeful that Dr. Kurtis’ discoveries will lead to powerful new prevention and treatment options that can save tens of thousands of lives, and we are proud to be leading in this important work,” said Elizabeth Ng, Chief Executive Officer of Ocean Biomedical.