JW Bioscience Obtains World's First US Patent for Sepsis Diagnostic Technology

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] JW Bioscience has proven the novelty of its core technology for early diagnosis of sepsis in the United States.

JW Holdings announced on the 25th that its subsidiary JW Bioscience received a patent registration decision from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the core technology of an early sepsis diagnostic kit using WRS (tryptophan-tRNA synthetase), which it is developing as the world's first.

JW Bioscience's patented technology is titled "Composition for diagnosing infectious diseases or infectious complications using WRS and method for detecting diagnostic markers," and the technology was transferred from the Medical Bio Convergence Research Group in May 2016.

WRS is a biomarker confirmed in a 2016 paper published in the international journal Nature Microbiology to be secreted into the bloodstream faster than major inflammatory substances that cause cytokine storms such as TNF-alpha and IL-6. The research was jointly conducted by Professor Kim Sung-hoon (Underwood Distinguished Professor at Yonsei University) and Professor Jin Mi-rim (Gachon University College of Medicine).

Until now, methods using procalcitonin (PCT) and C-reactive protein (CRP) have been used to diagnose sepsis, but JW Bioscience is the only company in the world that possesses technology to determine the presence of disease using WRS. Existing sepsis diagnostic markers could only diagnose infections caused by bacteria, but WRS can also diagnose sepsis caused by viruses and fungi.

JW Bioscience obtained a domestic patent for the WRS diagnostic technology in 2017 and has filed patents in Europe, China, and Japan as well as the United States. Clinical trials are currently underway at Sinchon Severance Hospital, Gachon Gil Medical Center, and Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, with plans to apply for product approval in the second half of this year.

A JW Bioscience official stated, "Treatment of sepsis, which is considered a major cause of death, requires rapid and accurate diagnosis to not miss the golden time," adding, "As we are developing the WRS diagnostic kit through open innovation with domestic and international researchers, the company will focus its capabilities to successfully commercialize it."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.