EPO awards Trilink patent for CleanAmp Primers

TriLink BioTechnologies, Inc. (TriLink), a leader in manufacturing high quality oligonucleotides and nucleoside triphosphates, announced today the award of their CleanAmp™ Primer patent by the European Patent Office (EPO Patent no. 2032714).

First launched in March of 2008, CleanAmp™ Primers pioneered TriLink's CleanAmp™ line of next generation Hot Start PCR products. The technology consists of thermolabile chemical modifications which allow for primer-based Hot Start activation in PCR. These modifications prevent primer extension at the lower temperatures of PCR set up and manipulation, eliminating primer dimer and mis-priming events. The performance of CleanAmp™ Primers can be applied to critical applications such as molecular diagnostics, forensics, detection of infectious agents and gene expression validation.

TriLink sought patent protection in Europe in 2007, filing the patent application titled Chemically Modified Oligonucleotide Primers for Nucleic Acid Amplification with the European Patent Office (EPO), under the patent application number 0777161.6, now EPO Patent no. 2032714, published on March 16, 2011.

Gerald Zon, co-inventor, commented, "CleanAmp™ Primers provide flexibility for use with either low-cost polymerases, or to further enhance performance of other PCR components, such as Hot Start polymerases or TriLink's CleanAmp™ dNTPs, in especially demanding applications."

"The CleanAmp™ Primers are the foundation of the CleanAmp™ product line, and paved the way for the innovative solutions of CleanAmp™ dNTPs and CleanAmp™ 7-deaza-dGTP. They continue to inspire us as we apply our nucleic acid chemistry expertise to build unique molecular biology tools," stated Richard Hogrefe, CEO of TriLink.