Columbia University, Public Patent Foundation biomanufacturing news
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted the foundation's request for a re-examination of U.S. Patent No. 6,455,275, which is held by the university. The patent covers co-transformation, which is a process for inserting foreign DNA into a host cell to produce proteins. The foundation said the patent violates the restriction against multiple patenting because the university previously received three other patents, now expired, for the same invention. The foundation said the '275 patent expires in 2019. Co-transformation is used in biotech products, including anemia drug Epogen from Amgen Inc. (AMGN, Thousand Oaks, Calif.), Activase for heart attacks and stroke from Genentech Inc. (DNA, South San Francisco, Calif.) and multiple sclerosis (MS) drug Avonex from Biogen Idec Inc. (BIIB, Cambridge, Mass.). ...