NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) — CytRx subsidiary RXi Pharmaceuticals will exclusively license Invitrogen’s second-generation RNAi technology for “designated target genes in all human therapeutic categories,” the companies said today.
The intellectual property covers Invitrogen’s Stealth technology and other tools related to chemically modified double-stranded RNA.
RXi CEO Tod Woolf said in a statement that the deal is “part of our strategy to enhance our proprietary rxRNA compounds for therapeutic applications.”
CytRx currently owns three clinical-stage compounds that use its small-molecule “molecular chaperone” co-induction technology, including candidates to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, diabetic foot ulcers, and stroke recovery.
Invitrogen’s Stealth RNAi synthetic duplexes are used for RNAi research across both in vitro and in vivo applications, Amy Butler, Invitrogen vice president of gene-expression profiling, said in a statement.
She said the company sees the use of the technology in therapeutics as “a natural next step in Invitrogen’s efforts to be at the cutting edge of in vivo gene regulation.”