On July 29, 2003 Cancer Research Technology and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. reported exclusive license to patent application WO 01/36646 ‘Inhibiting gene expression with dsRNA’ for therapeutic applications (Press release, Cancer Research Technology, JUL 29, 2003, View Source [SID1234523462]).
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Cancer Research Technology Limited (CRT) and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. announce today the execution of an exclusive license in the field of human therapeutics for CRT’s key RNA interference (RNAi) patent application ‘Inhibiting gene expression with dsRNA’ (WO 01/36646). The terms of the license have not been disclosed.
CRT CEO Harpal Kumar stated that ‘Alnylam is well positioned to develop RNAi therapeutics. This license should enable the application of this exciting platform technology to therapeutics, with the long term aim of benefiting patients. This license supplements CRT’s nonexclusive licensing strategy in the field of target validation, and the existing license we have in place for the pSUPER RNAi vector with DNAengine’.
Patent application WO 01/36646 is based on the pioneering research of Dr. Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz and colleagues (Dr. Florence Wianny, Professors David Glover and Martin Evans) at the University of Cambridge (UK), who demonstrated RNAi-mediated inhibition of endogenous genes in mammalian cells.
CRT is the holder of two key patent applications in the field of RNAi. CRT’s RNAi patent applications, together branded the SUPER RNAiTM System, are available for licensing on a nonexclusive basis in the fields of target validation and drug discovery.
The second patent filing from CRT covers pSUPER, a vector for long-term expression of RNAi effectors in mammalian cells, developed at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (Amsterdam) in the group of Professor Rene Bernards.
Several pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are working with CRT towards generating RNAi-based systems to meet the current demands of the industry for higher throughput analysis of mammalian gene function and rapid production of disease models to aid drug discovery. In addition, in association with CRT, Cancer Research UK is cofunding development of a library of pSUPER vectors expressing short interfering RNA targeted against cancer genes, which is under development at the Netherlands Cancer Institute.