Patents issued for probiotic kidney failure supplements

The company, which specializes in products targeting chronic kidney failure (CKF), is currently conducting trials on its new oral probiotic formulation, Kibow Biotics.

This, it claims, may significantly reduce concentrations of nitrogenous waste metabolites that accumulate in renal deficiency.

Kibow this week said it has been granted an International Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patent from Australia, China and India on 'Prebiotic and Probiotic Compositions and their Method of use for Gut-based Therapy'.

The company has already obtained US patents, and has an identical PCT patent pending in Canada, the EU, Japan and South Korea.

Kibow said the platform it is working on for its new product is called 'Enteric Dialysis'.

It allows the firm to use microbes naturally present in the gut to remove toxins that are usually removed by the kidneys.

This term, it said, has also been recognized as a registered service trademark by the patent and trademark authority of the government of India.

According to members of a National Institute of Health study, Kibow's dietary supplement "offers hope of delaying the need for dialysis by decreasing the uremic toxins".

Probiotics are viable microorganisms that are thought to have a beneficial effect in the prevention and treatment of specific pathologic conditions.

This works by indigenous anaerobi flora limiting the concentration of potentially pathogenic (mostly aerobic) flora in the digestive tract, explained the company.

Kibow's VP of clinical and regulatory affairs Pari Ranganathan told NutraIngredients-USA.com that the company has been working on the product for almost ten years.

All the preliminary studies have been completed, she said, and the firm is now initiating clinical trials around the globe in order to test the efficacy and safety of the supplements.

During the trial, Kibow aims to assess the impact of any complications induced by an oral bacterial formulation that may have application in the treatment of chronic renal failure patients.

The planned study will enroll patients in stage III and IV, of chronic kidney disease as defined by national Kidney Foundation guidelines, who will be randomized to receive one of two doses of active probiotic bacteria or placebo in an oral formulations.

There will be no modification of usual daily food intake.

"Appreciating that yeast cells now are the prime source of human insulin and cultured immortal Chinese hamster ovary cells routinely manufacture recombinant erythropoietin, it demands little imagination to envision an era in which trained bacteria substitute for renal, hepatic, and most endocrine functions," states the company on its website.

"Fabricating a bowel-based probiotic treatment for uremia in 2007 perspective is neither extraordinary nor an overly optimistic expression of science fiction."

Ranganathan said that by November this year the firm expects to have some idea of the launch timeline for the new product.

It plans to introduce this first in the US market, and then in other markets around the world.