iBio receives U.S. patent entitled 'System for Expression of Genes in Plants'

iBio, Inc. (NYSE AMEX: IBIO) today announced notice of issuance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for US Patent 8,058,511, entitled "System for Expression of Genes in Plants," that further extends iBio's patent coverage of viral vectors comprising its iBioLaunch™ platform. This proprietary technology owned by iBio was developed by scientists at iBio's research collaborator, the Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology (Fraunhofer).

"The issuance of this patent substantially strengthens the intellectual property foundation of the iBioLaunch system for simultaneously expressing more than a single protein," said Terence Ryan, Ph.D., iBio's Senior Vice-President. "For example, this patent protects the technology we use for production of human monoclonal antibodies, a rapidly growing pharmaceutical category in which we recently announced successful product candidate testing."

iBio is commercializing its technology by establishing licenses or other collaboration arrangements both for biosimilar products and proprietary products. In January 2011, iBio and Fraunhofer entered into a License and Collaboration Agreement with Fiocruz/ Bio-Manguinhos, an entity linked to the Health Ministry of Brazil, for the development and sale of a proprietary Yellow Fever Vaccine based upon the IBioLaunch technology, to replace the chicken egg based vaccine that Fiocruz has been producing and supplying to Brazil and more than 60 other nations. Since then, iBio has been advancing and making available other candidate products based on the iBioLaunch platform for similar license and collaboration arrangements.  

The broad range of iBioLaunch-produced product candidates in clinical or preclinical development include:  (i) human alpha-galactosidase for treatment of Fabry disease, (ii) the proteins C1 esterase inhibitor and alpha-1 antitrypsin which are currently derived from human blood plasma, (iii) monoclonal antibodies, and (iv) vaccines for prevention of yellow fever, influenza, malaria and anthrax. Additional undisclosed candidates are advancing through iBio's applications research program.

This additional iBio patent claims a system for expressing multiple polynucleotides of interest in a plant cell or whole plant using viral vectors that complement each other's viral functions in the plants.  The polynucleotides can encode chains of a multimeric protein, or can encode therapeutically active proteins.  The patent also describes methods for using the vector system to produce the desired proteins in plants.  Additional iBioLaunch vectors are described in iBio's earlier US patent 7,491,509 issued in 2009.