Santaris Pharma announced this week that the US Patent and Trademark Office has issued a inter partes re-examination certificate for a US patent held by the company and covering locked nucleic acids.
According to the company, the USPTO ruling upholds the claims within the patent, which had been the subject of re-examination proceedings initiated at the request of Isis Pharmaceuticals.
The patent in question, No. 6,770,748, is a continuation-in-part of another US patent that had also previously been the subject of an Isis re-examination request, according to Santaris.
"We are delighted that these lengthy procedures have been successfully concluded with USPTO confirming the patentability of our … patents,” Santaris President and CEO Henrik Stage said in a statement. “These are two of our fundamental patents, which provide broad protection for our … antisense drug platform based on the locked nucleic acid/bicyclic nucleic acid chemistries."