On November 5, 2024, a scholar’s decades long relentless quest into an important research achieved a special recognition, here in the United States and parts of the scientific community.

Through his combination of diligent work and pharmaceutics knowledge, Patrick Chukwuemeka Okoye, PhD, has been awarded the first U.S Patent on Modified Cassava Starch for Pharmaceutical Use in medicines.

The patent number is 12,133,918 B2, titled: “Partially Pre-gelatinized Cassava Starch as Pharmaceutical Excipient.”

I interviewed Dr. Okoye regarding his ground-breaking patent.

I think that this invention has, pontentially, what Joe Biden (Vice President at the time whispered to then President Obama) about a different legislative victory as a “fxxkn big deal!”

During our USAfricaLive.com chat with the research scientist, I asked him about the other values derivable from this work.

He cited the “use of modified starches in nutraceutical, animal feed, cosmetic and pharmaceutical drug making…. It is increasingly common as these ingredients serve as binders, disintegrating agents and fillers for cosmetics products, drug tablets and capsules.“

He affirmed that cassava flour and starches are also used globally in food such as tapioca, garri, fufu and baking and industrially in textiles and paint.

In this patent, Dr. Okoye stated that he not only created modified cassava starch that “performed better than other modified starches when used in medicines, but reduced the cyanide contaminant in cassava to undetectable levels.”

Significantly, global markets for a form of modified starch, known as “pre-gelatinized starch” are projected to grow more than $1billion by 2030.

He has been published severally in journals; the most recent is on the application of pharmaceutical lubricants in drug design.

Cassava is expected to become the most abundant starch in the world. Nigeria is the highest grower of cassava in the world.

Dr. Okoye’s research started while he was a pharmacy student in 1990, at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

In 1994, he moved to the U.S., where he continued his research at the Long Island University, in New York.  He obtained his doctorate degree in Pharmaceutics from the University in 2014.

Evidently, Dr. Okoye’s invention and patent hold some transformative potentialities.

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