Patent ID: 8569262

Claim:
A method of lessening, reducing, mitigating, ameliorating, or delaying pancreatic cancer in a subject, comprising administering to the subject a pharmaceutical composition comprising a polysaccharide preparation having the following characteristics: (a) a weight average chain molecular weight between 3,500 and 8,000 Da; (b) anti-Xa activity of less than 20 IU/mg and anti-IIa activity of 1 IU/mg or less; (c) greater than 5% and less than 25% glycol split uronic acid residues; and (d) a molecular weight distribution such that 10-40% of the polysaccharides of the preparation have a molecular weight <3000 Da; 45-65% of the polysaccharides have a molecular weight between 3000-8000 Da, and 15-30% of the polysaccharides have a molecular weight >8000 Da, wherein, the preparation comprises polysaccharides of Formula I: [U w -H x,y,z ] m ˜[U G -H x,y,z ] n wherein each occurrence of U indicates a uronic acid residue and each occurrence of H indicates a hexosamine residue; wherein m and n are integers such that m=4-16, and n=1-4; each of w, x, y and z can independently be the same or different for each occurrence of [U w -H x,y,z ] and each of x, y and z can independently be the same or different for each occurrence of [U G -H x,y,z ], wherein w=-2OS or -2OH; x=—NS or —NAc; y=-3OS or -3OH; z=-6OS or -6OH; and wherein the symbol ˜ indicates that the units marked m and n are distributed along the polysaccharide chain and are not necessarily in sequence.