ANTIBODIES: Yeast Library Patents Issued
Genetastix Corp. (780 Montague Expressway, Suite 303, San Jose, CA 95131; Tel: 408/435-8900, Fax: 408/433-9288; Website: genetastix.com) has been granted two U.S. patents, U.S. Patent 6,410,271, issued on June 25, 2002, entitled “Generation of Highly Diverse Library of Expression Vectors Via Homologous Recombination in Yeast” and U.S. Patent 6,410,246, also issued on June 25, 2002, entitled “Highly Diverse Library of Yeast Expression Vectors.” These two patents protect Genetastix’s core technology platform HuMYTech, with claims covering Genetastix’s HuMYBodies (antibody library collection-a highly diverse yeast based antibody library currently incorporating over 100 million distinct members -and methods by which Genetastix’s fully human antibody libraries are constructed.)
U.S. Patent 6,410,271 has claims relating to a library of yeast expression vectors encoding a library of fusion proteins wherein these sequences encode the heavy and light chain variable region of a human immunoglobulin. U.S. Patent 6,410,246 has claims relating to a method for generating a library of yeast expression vectors by exploiting the genetic mechanism of homologous recombination in yeast. The patents arise from work carried out by co-inventors Li Zhu and Ben Hua.
“Our unique approach offers the industry a totally different approach to generating fully human antibodies to important biological targets than Cambridge Antibody Technology’s phage display approach or the transgenic mouse approach used by Medarex or Abgenix,” says Li Zhu, president and CEO of Genetastix.
Genetastix now controls U.S. patents covering two key areas: antibody yeast expression libraries and the isolation of human antibodies to human proteins in yeast. Genetastix’s first issued patent, U.S. Patent 6,406,863, entitled “High Throughput Generation And Screening Of Fully Human Antibody Repertoire In Yeast,” was issued on June 18, 2002.
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