Patent ID: 7163695

Claim:
A pharmaceutical agent delivery composition comprising: (a) a transport polymer comprising a peptide, characterized as having at least 10 amino acid residues, and wherein at least 10% of said amino acid residues are histidine, and wherein at least 10% of said amino acid residues are selected from the group consisting of non-histidine amino acids with a side-group that carries a positive charge at physiological pH, and wherein the molecular structure of said peptide is selected from the group consisting of: linear, with the proviso that said peptide does not comprise a hexa-peptide having the sequence His-His-His-His-His-His, unless at least 10% of the remaining amino acid residues of said peptide are histidine; and branched, with a backbone peptide of 1 or more amino acid residues and at least one peptide branch of 1 or more amino acid residues covalently attached to a side-group of an amino acid residue of said backbone peptide, with the proviso that each peptide branch can consist of a single histidine residue only if the backbone peptide does not consist solely of lysine residues; with the proviso that said transport polymer does not consist of: a random histidine copolymer; or a block copolymer of histidine and a non-histidine amino acid with a side-group that carries a positive charge at physiological pH; (b) a pharmaceutical agent associated with said transport polymer; and (c) optionally, at least one intracellular delivery component associated with said transport polymer and/or said pharmaceutical agent.