OncoMed Pharma Gets Addl. Broad Anti-RSPO Antibody Patent In U.S. - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted OncoMed Pharmaceuticals Inc. (OMED) its third broad U.S. patent regarding antibodies that target the RSPO-LGR pathway, which is believed to be an important CSC pathway. The new patent, U.S. Patent No. 8,540,989, includes methods of treating cancer with antibodies that bind human R-spondin or RSPO proteins and either disrupt the binding of such proteins to their receptors, the leucine-rich repeat-containing G-coupled receptors or LGRs, or disrupt RSPO activation of LGR signaling.

This new patent is based on key discoveries by OncoMed scientists that RSPO proteins signal through the LGR receptor family and that antibodies that disrupt binding of RSPO proteins to LGRs or that disrupt RSPO activation of LGR signaling are potential anti-cancer agents. The company intends to file an Investigational New Drug filing on its first antibody targeting the RSPO-LGR pathway in as early as 2014. OncoMed has worldwide rights to all of its RSPO-LGR pathway programs.

Two broad composition-of-matter patents for the new patent were granted earlier in the U.S. to OncoMed. The composition-of-matter patents cover human, humanized, and chimeric monoclonal antibodies that disrupt binding of RSPO proteins to LGRs or disrupt RSPO activation of LGR signaling, according to OncoMed.