Cutiss founders granted European patent

The European Patent Office has granted a tissue graft patent for the personalized bioengineered human skin tissue therapy developed by Cutiss. The patent, numbered 3174563, has been granted to the University of Zurich (UZH), where the founders of Cutiss AG were working at the time that the patent application was originally filed in 2014, further details of which can be found in a press release. The patent lists Ernst Reichmann, Daniela Marino and Agnieszka Sylwia Klar as inventors. Marino is CEO of Cutiss AG, based in Schlieren in the canton of Zurich, while Reichmann is a member of the Board of Directors. The patent is exclusively licensed to Cutiss.

The biotech company’s first skin tissue therapy product - denovoSkin - is currently undergoing Phase IIb clinical trials in Switzerland and the European Union. It has received Orphan Drug Designation for the treatment of burns from Swissmedic, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The Cutiss AG manufacturing facility in Schlieren was only classified by Swissmedic in December. The company’s first local manufacturing facility has been certified for compliance with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Good Distribution Practices (GDP) by the regulatory authority.

Cutiss was founded as a spin-off from the University of Zurich (UZH) in 2017 and is headquartered at the Bio-Technopark Schlieren-Zurich.