ChromaDex gets patent rights from Dartmouth College for use of nicotinamide riboside

The company said that the new licensed patents include protection for human therapeutic uses of NR and build upon the patents licensed from Dartmouth in 2012 for other human uses and production methods of NR.

The company provides proprietary ingredients and science-based solutions to the dietary supplement, food and beverage, animal health, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.

The license covers US Patent numbers 8,197,807; 8,114,626; and 8,383,086, which were filed by Dartmouth as a result of research sponsored by the National Cancer Institute.

Dartmouth College faculty member Charles Brenner has discovered NR in 2004, to be a vitamin precursor of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) found in milk, which is made available by nicotinamide riboside kinases (Nrks) that are conserved between yeast and humans.

Dartmouth director of Technology Transfer Alla Kan said the expansion of the successful collaboration with ChromaDex provides new venues for NR utilization in healthcare.

"This license is a perfect example of the benefits to society created by the technology transferred from academia to industry. We look forward to developing NR for human therapies," Kan said.

ChromaDex founder and CEO Frank Jaksch said the acquisition of these additional Dartmouth patent rights allows for the company to commercialize NR as a drug.

"Together with our existing patent portfolio pertaining to NR, we believe our ownership of these new patent rights creates a significant and meaningful barrier to entry for would-be competitors in the entire NAD+ precursor market," Jaksch said.