Alnylam and Isis Announce Allowance of First U.S. Patent Covering Human microRNAs

05-Mar-2007

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has allowed claims in a patent application that covers microRNAs (miRNAs) and therapeutic molecules that target these miRNAs. The USPTO issued a "Notice of Allowance" for patent application 10/490,955, which is derived from the "Tuschl III" patent series licensed co-exclusively to Alnylam and Isis for miRNA therapeutics on a world-wide basis through an agreement with Max-Planck-Innovation GmbH, the licensing agent for the Max Planck Society. Following a "Notice of Allowance," the companies would expect final issuance of the patent within six months.

miRNAs have been shown to regulate the expression of a large number of genes in the human genome through the RNAi pathway, and many of these miRNAs are believed to be involved in disease processes including cancer, metabolic disease, and viral infection. The Tuschl III patent series pertains to the discovery of over 120 novel mammalian miRNAs and stems from groundbreaking research performed by Alnylam founder Thomas Tuschl, Associate Professor of RNA Molecular Biology at The Rockefeller University, while at the Max Planck Society (Lagos-Quintana et al., (2001) Science 294, 853-858). The allowed claims cover a disease-associated miRNA, specifically miR-122, which is a liver-specific miRNA that has been shown to be required for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection (Jopling et al. (2005) Science 309, 1577-81). Isis and Alnylam have demonstrated that in vivo antagonism of miR-122 with antisense drugs is associated with regulation of a discrete set of genes involved in liver metabolism (Krutzfeldt et al. (2005) Nature 438, 685-689; Esau et al. (2006) Cell Metab., 3, 87-98).

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/62334/alnylam-and-isis-announce-allowance-of-first-u-s-patent-covering-human-micrornas.html