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news.Dicerna Pharmaceuticals announced a series of recently issued patents providing broad composition and method of use claims covering double stranded RNA molecules, called dicer substrate siRNAs (DsiRNAs).
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These patents have issued over the last several months from the intellectual property licensed by Dicerna from the City of Hope (COH) estate in November 2007.
The newly issued claims provide broad protection for the therapeutic use of DsiRNA oligonucleotides, a technology at the core of Dicerna’s current product pipeline development programs.
In their breadth, the issued claims clearly establish the dicer substrate technology as a distinct platform approach to harnessing the RNAi phenomenon in the development of human therapeutic products for multiple indications.
The collection of recently issued claims cover composition and method of use type claims that allow an expansive approach to the use of DsiRNAs with minimal restriction on the molecular structure of DsiRNAs; thereby, maximizing the design flexibility in preparing therapeutic molecules.
Dicerna president and CEO Douglas Fambrough said: "As we move into clinical development of our product candidates, the issuance of these new patents adds significantly to our intellectual property estate.
"These patents also strengthen the original City of Hope patent, for which we are a licensee."
The most recently issued patent, US PTO 8,809,515,"515" issued on August 19, 2014, claims in broad terms a pharmaceutical composition comprised of a very generally described dicer-substrate.
Fambrough added: "The generality of the claim language captures the breadth of opportunity we have in designing, optimizing, and targeting our DsiRNAs."
Dicerna Business Development vice president David Miller said: "This has been a productive period in the prosecution of these cases.
"These patents broadly support our activities and those of our partners."
Since February of this year, four patents have issued from the original City of Hope application, "Methods and Compositions for the Specific Inhibition of Gene Expression by Double-Stranded RNA."
The other patents issued from the US PTO are 8,658,356; 8,691,786; and 8,796,444.