Regulus Therapeutics Inc., Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), and Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ISIS), announced today that the Japan Patent Office (JPO) has notified the Max Planck Society of its intent to grant a patent from the Tuschl III patent series (JP Application Number 2003-532675). This patent series pertains to the discovery of over 120 novel mammalian microRNAs, including miR-122, which is a leading pre-clinical program at Regulus. The grant of this first Tuschl III patent in Japan extends the scope of this patent estate, which has already yielded patents in the U.S. (U.S. Patent No. 7,232,806) and in Australia (Australian Patent No. 2002 347 035).
The Tuschl III patent series stems from groundbreaking research (Lagos-Quintana et al., (2001) Science 294, 853-858) performed by Alnylam founder and Regulus scientific advisory board member Dr. Thomas Tuschl, Associate Professor of RNA Molecular Biology at The Rockefeller University, while at the Max Planck Society. The Tuschl III patent series is exclusively held by Regulus for microRNA therapeutics through license agreements amongst Max Planck, Alnylam, and Isis.
“Regulus is advancing a whole new frontier of pharmaceutical research through the discovery of microRNA therapeutics, which have the potential to affect broad disease pathways as opposed to single gene targets,” said Kleanthis G. Xanthopoulos, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Regulus Therapeutics. “Through our partnerships with Alnylam, Isis, and our relationships with leading academic institutions such as the Max Planck, we have built a dominant intellectual property estate for the development of microRNA therapeutics. This is first in the Tuschl III series to grant in Japan, and we expect more to come from this important and early patent series.”