Regeneron Receives Third U.S. Patent Covering Cytokine Trap Program
Businesswire, Tuesday, October 29, 2002 at 08:59
TARRYTOWN, N.Y., Oct 29, 2002 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: REGN) today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted Regeneron U.S. Patent No. 6,472,179 directed to the novel design and production of the Company's cytokine antagonists, termed Cytokine Traps.
This is the third U.S. patent issued to Regeneron covering Cytokine Traps. Regeneron is developing Cytokine Traps as potential protein therapeutics for a diverse set of serious medical conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.
Cytokines are soluble proteins secreted by the cells of the body. In many cases, cytokines act as messengers to help regulate immune and inflammatory responses. In excess, cytokines can be harmful and have been linked to a variety of diseases. Blocking cytokines is a proven therapeutic approach and cytokines represent among the best validated targets for pharmaceutical development.
Regeneron has developed an approach to blocking the activity of cytokines using its proprietary Traps, which have the ability to attach to and"trap"target cytokines in the blood stream thereby neutralizing them. Cytokines attach to cell-surface receptors, or docking stations, and generate signals that can trigger disease activity in body tissue. For most cytokines, two distinct receptor components cooperate to bind the cytokine very tightly. Regeneron's Traps incorporate both of these receptor components in one soluble blocker, thereby mimicking the cell's natural receptors. Once attached to the Trap, the cytokines cannot bind to the cell surface and, together with the Trap, are flushed from the body."The Cytokine Trap technology arose from our basic discoveries detailing the mechanism of cytokine receptor activation, coupled with our strong protein engineering capabilities,"noted Neil Stahl, Ph.D., Regeneron's Senior Vice President, Preclinical Development and Biomolecular Science."Our IL-1 Trap, utilizing the design covered by this patent, has shown promising early results in clinical trials for rheumatoid arthritis. We believe that this confirms our ability to develop Traps for other therapeutic categories and that the Trap program may be an important element of our future success."This new patent covers a novel method for creating Cytokine Traps that has been successfully used to construct the Company's IL-1 Trap and IL-4/13 Trap. The patent covers Traps for any cytokine whose receptor has a specific cytokine-binding component and a signaling component, including many members of the interleukin, hematopoietin, and interferon families.
The IL-1 Trap is currently in a Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, and the IL-4/13 Trap is being evaluated as a treatment for asthma. The Company also has several Cytokine Traps in preclinical development.
About Regeneron
Regeneron is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, and intends to commercialize therapeutic medicines for the treatment of serious medical conditions. Regeneron has therapeutic candidates in clinical trials for the potential treatment of obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, and asthma and has preclinical programs in other diseases and disorders. Regeneron's platform technologies include Targeted Genomics(TM), Functionomics(TM), and Designer Protein Therapeutics(TM). |
