Marina Biotech has received the US Patent and Trademark Office Notice of Allowance (NOA) for US 11/745,003 patent application covering amphoteric liposomal formulations, including its proprietary Smarticles technology, for delivery of siRNAs and other compounds with therapeutic application.
Marina Biotech chief scientific officer Barry Polisky said that delivery of nucleic acids remains the hurdle to successful development of RNAi-based therapeutics.
“Amphoteric liposomes enable the precise control of the charge and fusion properties of a liposome which are key requisites for effective delivery, and do not require additional surface modification to stabilise and mask the particle from undesirable biological interactions,” Polisky said.
“These characteristics differentiate amphoteric liposomes from standard liposomes used by others in the RNAi field, and provide a broad platform for the efficient delivery of RNAi-based therapeutics.”
Marina Biotech president and CEO Michael French said that they believe that patent allowance represents the fundamental IP necessary for developing amphoteric liposomal delivery systems for RNAi-based therapeutics.
“In the near future, we expect to see additional patent allowances for Marina Biotech related to our fundamental IP covering the DiLA2 delivery platform, tkRNAi platform (bacterial delivery platform) and our peptide nanoparticle delivery platform,” French said.