Mar 30 2010
MDRNA, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRNA), a leading RNAi-based drug discovery and development company, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a Notice of Allowance for patent application U.S. 12/701,397 covering methods for the delivery of siRNAs as well as a broad array of compounds with pharmacological activity.
The patent identifies and protects peptides that were discovered using MDRNA's proprietary Trp Cage Phage Display Library and describes targeting peptides that demonstrate high binding affinity to, and internalization by, hepatocellular carcinoma cells.
"Specificity to individual cell types and internalization are key attributes required for peptide-directed delivery," said Barry Polisky, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of MDRNA. "The Trp Cage Phage Display Library is proving to be a robust means to screen and identify peptides that impart these targeting characteristics. The addition of these novel peptides to our proprietary DiLA2 delivery platform technology permits the potential development of highly tissue- and cell-specific RNAi-based therapies for the treatment of cancers in which the need to differentiate between normal and diseased cells is important."
MDRNA's proprietary Trp Cage Phage Display Library (J Biol Chem. 2007 282(13):9813) is the subject of an issued patent, U.S. patent 7,329,725. The Trp Cage motif is highly structured allowing for the identification of peptides with high binding affinity for specific cell or tissue types, and avoids the limitations and weak binding often associated with linear peptide libraries. This technology is directly applicable to the Company's DiLA2 delivery platform as peptides are readily conjugated to the amino acid scaffold of a DiLA2. Peptides capable of directed delivery are expected to further improve the delivery efficiency of UsiRNAs, which have demonstrated significant knockdown of target genes in mouse models of liver and bladder cancer, and in non-human primates.
"This is the second Notice of Allowance that we have received in the past four months from the USPTO for a patent application that covers the use of our proprietary targeting peptide technology," said J. Michael French, President and CEO of MDRNA. "We are pleased that the USPTO recognizes the novelty and significance of our proprietary peptide targeting technology. The identification of additional peptides with high affinity to specific cell types, including certain cancers, further strengthens our broad patent estate."
On December 17, 2009, MDRNA received a Notice of Allowance from the USPTO for patent application U.S. 11/627,863, which covers the use of targeting peptides that have preferential binding affinity for lung tissue.
Source: http://www.mdrnainc.com