Marina Biotech Receives Notice of Allowance for U.S. Patent

Marina Biotech, Inc. has announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a Notice of Allowance for patent application U.S. 10/505,107 with claims that broadly cover a library of nucleic acid delivery lipids related to its SMARTICLES® delivery technology.

The SMARTICLES delivery technology has been licensed to ProNAi Therapeutics, Inc. for delivery of single-stranded oligonucleotide therapeutics and to Mirna Therapeutics, Inc. for delivery of double-stranded microRNA mimics.

The company's library of patent protected delivery compounds includes both DiLA2 and SMARTICLES-based compounds, such as sterol derivatives and two-tailed lipids.

"Our extensive library of delivery compounds provides a large and diverse chemistry space within which we can develop specific delivery formulations tailored to a nucleic acid payload, gene target, and therapeutic indication," stated Richard Ho, M.D., Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Research and Development at Marina Biotech.

Ho continued, "Combined with the company's proprietary method for screening large numbers of lipids as well as liposomal compositions, we can quickly identify potent and well tolerated formulations for lead selection. This provides us with a unique ability to offer partners a broad approach to nucleic acid drug discovery and development. We are currently applying our delivery technologies, both DiLA2 and SMARTICLES, in both in-house preclinical efforts as well as through licensing collaborations with The Debiopharm Group and Mirna Therapeutics respectively. This patent is part of our larger global portfolio of delivery compound patents, which ensures the broadest patent protection available to us for our nucleic acid delivery development efforts."