By Donald Zuhn ---
Last month, Koronis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office had issued a Notice of Allowance for its application directed to Koronis' lead HIV therapeutic candidate, KP-1461. The patent that eventually issues from the allowed application will be the first U.S. patent to be awarded to the Redmond, Washington-based biotechnology company.
A search of the USPTO Published Applications database and of Public PAIR indicates that the Notice of Allowance described in Koronis' statement was issued for U.S. App. No. 10/226,799, which is entitled "Mutagenic Nucleoside Analogs for the Treatment of Viral Disease," and which was published on September 11, 2003 as U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0170872. The Public PAIR record for this application shows that the Notice of Allowance was mailed on January 11, 2007. Because the applicants filed a Petition to Revive on January 25, 2007, it is unclear when the patent will issue.
According to the statement released by Koronis, the allowed claims relate to both the use and composition of KP-1461, a small molecule for oral administration that is currently being tested in clinical trials for the treatment of HIV infection. In a process known as Viral Decay Acceleration (VDA), the novel compound has been shown in in vitro experiments to increase the virus' naturally high mutation rate, with the accumulation of mutations throughout the viral genome ultimately exceeding an error threshold that leads to viral collapse.
The '799 application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Nos. 60/314,728, filed August 24, 2001. Representative independent claim 1 of the '799 application recites:
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