Regen BioPharma, Inc. announced filing of a provisional patent application with the USPTO entitled “Dual Checkpoint Inhibitor Aptamer Based Therapeutics”. The application covers novel compositions of matter capable of acting as conventional checkpoint inhibitor drugs while simultaneously silencing genes which regulate T cells and cancer cells such as NR2F6 and Survivin. The Company believes that this platform technology is the first combination of an immunotherapy and a gene silencing agent in a single drug.

Aptamers are short DNA or RNA sequences which can function as antibodies – they recognize specific proteins and bind to them. This new technology takes advantage of the fact that the Company can put its proprietary RNA or DNA sequences which code for inhibitory RNAs on one end of an aptamer while using the other end of the aptamer to bind to, and thus inhibit, a traditional immune checkpoint such as PD-1. Once the aptamer is internalized into the cell, the proprietary DNA or RNA sequence is converted to an inhibitory RNA which targets other genes involved in T cell function or cancer growth leading to a two-pronged approach to T cell activation or cancer-killing.