Singapore: Leading nucleic acid-based drug discovery and development firm Marina Biotech has announced a worldwide expansion of delivery technology intellectual property estate. The company that is focused on rare diseases had said that it received patent protection for its comprehensive and diverse nucleic acid delivery platform. The company announced that it had received patent grants covering delivery technologies of the company like SMARTICLES in Europe, TransKingdom RNA interference (tkRNAi) in Japan, Di-terminal Amino Acid Lipids (DILA2) in Australia, and lipopeptide nucleic acid delivery in China.

As per the report, these grants support a global intellectual property estate broadly covering the company's biochemistry and delivery technologies with over 100 issued or allowed patents and over 90 pending US and foreign patent applications.

The company's president and CEO, Mr J Michael French said in the announcement, "Marina Biotech continues to extend patent coverage for its nucleic acid delivery technologies in key commercial markets."

He added, "Looking broadly at our nucleic acid delivery capability, we believe we are the only company that has a delivery technology, SMARTICLES, in clinical development that is: (1) delivering both a single-stranded and double-stranded nucleic acid; (2) delivering to both the cell nucleus (ProNAi Therapeutics' single-stranded DNA decoy) and cell cytoplasm (Mirna Therapeutics' double-stranded microRNA mimic); and (3) delivering a lipid nanoparticle outside the liver, (i.e. tumors)."

Further, the company explained that they believe that they are the only company that has two separate and distinct delivery technologies, SMARTICLES (lipid nanoparticle) and tkRNAi (engineered bacteria), in clinical development. "We are the only company with an orally administered RNAi-based therapeutic in clinical development - the Company's CEQ508 for the treatment of Familial Adenomatous Polyposis. Taken in its entirety, we believe our delivery platform is unparalleled within the sector and unequalled in clinical versatility. We expect these technologies to be instrumental in the rapid advancement of nucleic acid therapeutics treating rare diseases," Mr French said.