Alnylam Grants Bioneer License to Kreutzer-Limmer Patents for the RNAi Research Products Market
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Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Bioneer, Inc. have announced that Alnylam has granted Bioneer a non-exclusive license to provide RNAi research products under the Kreutzer-Limmer patent family.
This patent family, owned exclusively by Alnylam, covers small interfering RNAs and their use to mediate RNAi in mammalian cells.
"Granting rights to the Kreutzer-Limmer patent family represents one important component of Alnylam's strategy to build value now and in the future through its intellectual property estate," said Roland Kreutzer, Ph.D., Managing Director of Alnylam Europe AG.
"Execution of this license agreement with Bioneer, one of the largest oligonucleotide manufacturers in the world, continues to underscore the value of the Alnylam-owned Kreutzer-Limmer patent family as a critical component of fundamental intellectual property in the field of RNAi."
"This agreement brings the number of licenses Alnylam has executed granting rights to its intellectual property estate to more than 20, including 12 with research product suppliers."
"In addition, we believe that a significant portion of sales of siRNAs for research purposes are currently being made under access to Alnylam's intellectual property."
"Taking a license to the Kreutzer-Limmer patent family strengthens our ability to provide synthetic oligonucleotides to our customers," said Nisha Sahay, Ph.D., Director of Marketing of Bioneer, Inc.
"This license enables Bioneer to execute on our mission of bringing state-of-the art research tools to the biotech industry worldwide in this exciting post-genomic era."
Alnylam's IP estate includes certain "fundamental" patents and patent applications that claim the broad structural and functional properties of synthetic RNAi products.
These include the Kreutzer-Limmer I and II patents, acquired through the Ribopharma merger: EP Patent No. 1144623, covering methods, medicaments and uses of siRNAs with up to 25 nucleotides complementary to a target gene; EP Patent No. 1214945, covering compositions, methods, and uses of siRNAs with a length between 15 and 49 nucleotides; and EP Patent No. 1352061, covering therapeutic compositions, methods, and uses of siRNA and derivatives directed toward over 125 disease targets.
Additional fundamental patents licensed to Alnylam on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis include those of Crooke (U.S. Patent Nos. 5,898,031 and 6,107,094), Fire and Mello (U.S. Patent No. 6,506,559), Glover et al. (EP Patent No. 1230375), and the Tuschl II series (derived from WO 02/044321 and including recently allowed applications US 10/832,248 and US 10/832,432, with further patent applications pending).
In addition, Alnylam has licenses to other fundamental patents pending, including Tuschl I (derived from WO 01/075164).