Yale and Innovir Laboratories Inc. of New York City have been granted additional broad patent rights for a promising technology for treating and preventing a number of diseases, including hepatitis. The technology, also useful in genetic research, is based on discoveries that earned Yale biologist Sidney Altman the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Professor Altman shared the prize with Thomas Cech of the University of Colorado for experiments showing that RNA is not just a passive carrier of genetic code but can also be an enzyme that actively engages in chemical reactions. Their discovery of RNA enzymes, or "ribozymes," in separate experiments performed in the late 1970s and early 1980s triggered a new branch of genetic engineering aimed at treating lethal viruses and repairing genetic defects.
Innovir Laboratories is conducting research on External Guide Sequence (EGS) oligozymes, which seek out and attach to the genetic blueprint of specific viruses so a ribozyme can cut the blueprint into shreds, making it unreadable. Innovir is developing EGS molecules that target viruses that cause hepatitis B, hepatitis C, psoriasis and other inflammatory diseases, as well as drug-resistant infections.
As a research aid, EGS oligozymes hold potential both to identify how different genes function and to identify molecular targets for new drug therapies, which could help pharmaceutical companies discover new drugs.
Professor Altman, the Sterling Professor of Biology, recently was issued a U.S. patent, and Innovir has been allowed two additional patent applications, which provide comprehensive patent protection for the EGS oligozyme technology. Innovir has an exclusive worldwide license from Yale to commercialize the technology, which already is backed by 3 issued patents, 6 allowed patents and 20 pending patents.
Under its license with Yale, Innovir has sole rights to EGS for use in targeting infectious agents in all animal species and cell types. The company's patents cover both the EGS technology -- including design, synthesis, chemical modification and delivery -- and its application for specific diseases.
In December Innovir announced key advances in its tests of EGS technology against hepatitis B, a widespread and serious viral disease for which there is currently no broadly effective treatment. According to Innovir, EGS reduced the amount of viral DNA in cell cultures to undetectable levels -- a decrease of at least a hundred- fold in comparison to untreated control cultures. EGS was reported to be 10 times more potent in inhibiting the virus than the leading drug being developed to treat hepatitis B.
Initial test results in a mouse model that produces the hepatitis B virus demonstrate that Innovir's technology also is a potent inhibitor of hepatitis virus growth in animals, note company officials.
Yale grants licenses for the manufacture, sale and use of an invention in return for a companyUs funding of the patent-application process and royalties or equity. The University's Office of Cooperative Research (OCR) has successfully negotiated more than 200 invention license agreements since 1982, and has earned a total of $25.3 million in royalties since 1982 from 143 U.S. and numerous foreign patents and from non-patented inventions. Royalty income grew from $151,000 in 1982 to a record sum in excess of $12 million this year. Yale has 189 patents pending. For further information, see the OCR page on the World Wide Web: www.yale.edu/ocr.