Antisense chemistry interference involves Hybridon.Hybridon, Inc. (Cambridge, MA) announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO or USPTO) is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that provides patent protection to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property has declared an interference between United States Patent Application 08/346,270 assigned to the University of Massachusetts The system includes UMass Amherst, UMass Boston, UMass Dartmouth (affiliated with Cape Cod Community College), UMass Lowell, and the UMass Medical School. It also has an online school called UMassOnline. (Amherst, MA) and three patents issued to the National Institutes of Health. The patent application entitled "Inhibition of HTLV-III by exogenous oligonucleotides" has been exclusively licensed to Hybridon. The PTO's Declaration of Interference has named University of Massachusetts the senior party. The three NIH "Not invented here." See digispeak. NIH - The United States National Institutes of Health. patents at issue in the proceeding are US Patents 5,264,423; 5,276,019; and 5,286,717, each entitled "Inhibitors for replication of retroviruses and for the expression of oncogene oncogene Gene that can cause cancer. It is a sequence of DNA that has been altered or mutated from its original form, the proto-oncogene (see mutation). Proto-oncogenes promote the specialization and division of normal cells. products." "This declaration of interference by the PTO PTO abbr. 1. Parent Teacher Organization 2. or p.t.o. please turn over 3. power takeoff PTO or pto please turn over Noun 1. puts Hybridon in a position potentially to strengthen its broad patent estate in first-generation antisense antisense, DNA or RNA manipulated in a laboratory so that its components (nucleotides) form a complementary copy of normal, or "sense," messenger RNA (mRNA; see nucleic acid). chemistry," said Stephen R. Seiler, Hybridon's Chief Executive Officer. "Hybridon already has an existing, broad patent estate in second-generation antisense chemistry. The PTO Notice Declaring Interference states that all claims of the subject patents are at issue. While Hybridon has moved its product development focus completely to second-generation compounds, first generation antisense continues to be practiced by other antisense companies." Hybridon is a leader in the discovery and development of novel therapeutics and diagnostics, based on synthetic DNA DNA: see nucleic acid. DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid One of two types of nucleic acid (the other is RNA); a complex organic compound found in all living cells and many viruses. It is the chemical substance of genes. . The company now has four technology platforms: 1) Synthetic immunomodulatory oligonucleotide motifs that act to modulate responses of the immune system; 2) Antisense technology which uses synthetic DNA to block the production of disease-causing proteins at the cellular level; 3) Synthetic DNA drug candidates that enhance the antitumor activity of certain marketed anticancer drugs, thereby increasing their effectiveness; and 4) Cyclicon probes, novel synthetic DNA structures for identifying gene function, which can be used for target validation and drug discovery as well as for PCR-based gene amplification. Hybridon, Inc. +1-617-679-5500 www.hybridon.com |
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