Sourcing the right innovation intelligence solution to enhance patient care
Erytech Pharma is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in Lyon, France, best known for its proprietary ERYCAPS® red cell encapsulation platform, which it uses to produce red cell-based therapeutics to treat patients with rare forms of cancer and orphan diseases. Erytech’s lead product candidate, eryaspase (red cells encapsulating asparaginase), is currently in Phase 3 clinical development for the treatment of second-line pancreatic cancer and Phase 2/3 for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).
According to Chad Kitchen, Head of IP (and part of the Business Development & Licensing team) for Erytech, innovation intelligence data contributes significantly to their ability to successfully develop and commercialize their suite of red cell-based therapeutics. “We use it foremost to monitor risks and opportunities in the form of potential partners or competitors,” said Kitchen. “Patent data is a great proxy for a company’s investment activity. Using PatSnap, I can quickly develop actionable insights based upon a variety of factors, including where organizations are filing, how large the patent families are, and how mature the technology is.”
Kitchen names the speed at which he can monitor the technology landscape, and the quality of results produced, as two key factors influencing his proactive response to risks and opportunities. Erytech is constantly looking to provide the best possible treatments for patients, and innovation data helps them identify opportunities to expand the usefulness of their products (e.g. by applying a therapeutic to a new indication or adding it to another therapeutic to produce a synergistically effective combination). “We use a variety of data sources to help us consider how to help the most people using our ERYCAPS® encapsulation technology and our lead candidate eryaspase. What therapeutics might combine most effectively with eryaspase? What other indications will it be useful for?” Kitchen said. “Mining through patent literature certainly helps us do that.”
Bringing PatSnap’s IP intelligence solution on board
Kitchen is no stranger to the innovation and IP solutions marketplace. Over the course of his career, he’s experimented with a wide range of patent databases, but none of them delivered the speed and ease he was looking for. “I think quickly, and I was looking for a solution that didn’t break my rhythm. A lot of the tools I was using were logging me off within minutes if I wasn’t active in the system.”
It was only after he was introduced to PatSnap’s connected innovation intelligence platform, that he found a solution worthy of bringing back to his organization, “I need to be able to look thoroughly and quickly at a technology landscape and PatSnap is the best platform I’ve used so far for that.” Kitchen was also cognizant of the fact that there would be multiple users of the solution and he wanted something that would be easy to train on. “PatSnap stood out as something that would be easy for me to bring the rest of my group that do complementary work with patents, up to speed on.”
Kitchen finds PatSnap’s collaboration features particularly useful when working within a team of multiple users. A PatSnap Workspace makes it easy for him to farm out different pieces of a research project quickly to other users. “With PatSnap, I can just go in, conduct a “similar patents” search based on a couple of patents that I know are relevant, and suddenly I have a work file filled with information that I can share with colleagues,” said Kitchen. “I can say (to colleagues) why don’t you come to a conclusion about the technology while I review the patent claims to see what the scope is?”
Faster and more intuitive than other innovation tools
Kitchen believes that PatSnap enables him to work up to 3 times faster than the current competitor tools on the market, and not just because of the platform’s inherent speed. He believes the solution has a level of intuitiveness about it that makes it instantly comfortable and convenient to use. “PatSnap lets me transition into search and produce a landscape a lot faster than I could otherwise. I felt like with PatSnap, it was quicker for me to get into a rhythm of finding what I need and then focus more of my time on review & analysis.”
Kitchen is proud of the work his organization is doing to identify new therapies to treat unmet medical needs and source opportunities to enhance their current line of product candidates. Equipped with PatSnap’s connected innovation intelligence platform, he believes he’s in an infinitely better position to deliver on those meaningful goals.
