The new patent, US Patent No. 8,765,913, includes claims covering certain FZD-Fc compositions of matter and also claims covering methods of treating cancer with such soluble receptors.
The company said that polynucleotides encoding the claimed FZD-Fc polypeptides and cells producing such polypeptides are also covered in the patent.
Apart from the FZD-Fc patent, the company has previously been granted US patents related to FZD-Fc soluble receptors including US Patent Nos. 7,723,477 and 8,324,361.
Related patents have also been issued in Japan and Australia, and the company has submitted related applications which are pending in Europe and certain additional foreign countries.
OncoMed chairman and chief executive officer Paul Hastings said, "We expect that this new patent will provide an additional layer of protection for our ipafricept program, as well as further strengthen OncoMed’s growing intellectual property position in the Wnt/FZD field."
Ipafricept is a fusion protein, which includes a portion of the human FZD8 receptor and a human immunoglobulin Fc domain.
It acts as a decoy receptor that inhibits Wnt signaling by binding Wnt ligands that are activators of Wnt signaling.
In preclinical studies, FZD8-Fc has showed anti-tumor activity in several patient-derived xenograft models.
Currently, FZD8-Fc is in Phase Ia and Ib clinical development and is part of the company’s collaboration with Bayer.