Gateway Biotechnology, Inc., a biotechnology company that repurposes drugs with established safety records to prevent and treat hearing disorders, today announced that is has been assigned U.S. patent number 10,434,097 to develop a compound isolated from a Chinese medicinal plant for the prevention and treatment of noise-induced hearing loss. The Patent “Methods and Compositions for Treating Hearing Disorders” builds on published research conducted at Gateway Biotechnology that has shown that tetrandrine(TET) is able to prevent and treat noise-induced hearing loss in pre-clinical trials. The research has shown that TET can protect against up to 83% of the damage induced by noise treatment in our model system. “Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a major health issue, which could lead to tinnitus. Almost everyone is exposed to hazardous noise at some point in his or her life. Currently, no therapeutics have been approved by the U.S. FDA for use in the amelioration of NIHL,” said Jianxin Bao, Ph.D., Co-founder of Gateway Biotechnology, Inc. “We will move TET quickly into clinical studies to address this unmet need.” Future studies will be focused on beginning clinical studies in people at risk of NIHL.
Gateway Biotechnology, Inc. has over a decade of product development through grants and contracts from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Army. Gateway Biotechnology is focused on developing drug candidates with proven safety records to combat hearing disorders. Our innovative approach utilizes a novel pre-clinical pipeline that identifies candidate drugs to fight tinnitus and noise-induced hearing loss that is grounded in a deep understanding of basic mechanisms underlying hearing loss and targets multiple cellular pathways. To learn more about Gateway Biotechnology and potential investment opportunities contact Dr. Jianxin Bao, CEO, Gateway Biotechnology (jbao@gatewaybiotechnology.com).
