Oxford BioMedica, a gene therapy company, has received a Notice of Allowance from the US Patent Office for a Patent covering modifications to lentiviral vectors that improve safety and efficacy
Oxford BioMedica owns an extensive portfolio of broad patents and patent applications covering many aspects of the composition of matter and use of gene delivery systems based on lentiviral vectors.
This patent estate underpins the company's neurotherapy pipeline of five products and is the subject of recent commercial deals with a number of companies including Merck and Biogen Idec.
The Notice of Allowance, announced today, adds significantly to Oxford BioMedica's dominating patent estate.
Claims cover specific genetic alterations in the vectors' genome, which prevent them interfering with cellular functions in the target cells.
This ensures that the vectors have a safety profile compatible with their use in therapeutic products, and possess the ideal properties required for drug discovery applications and the production of transgenic animals.
Therefore, the claims broadly cover important modifications of lentiviral vectors and, as such, dominate a large part of the field.
These alterations are included in the company's LentiVector technology which forms the basis of its products for Parkinson's disease, age-related macular degeneration, motor neuron disease, spinal muscular atrophy and nerve repair.
Commenting on the news, Peter Nolan, Oxford BioMedica's senior vice president for commercial development said: "Our LentiVector patent estate goes from strength-to-strength and is attracting significant interest from pharmaceutical and large biotech companies.
"The LentiVector platform has formed the basis of four deals since our technology licensing initiative commenced in early 2004 and is currently the subject of five further negotiations".
