Nodality Receives Three Key US Patents in Oncology and Autoimmune Diseases
South San Francisco, California, July 24, 2012Nodality, Inc., a company focused on improving the development and clinical use of therapeutics for personalized medicine, received three, key patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). United States Patent number 8,227,202 provides coverage for Nodality's first diagnostic product which is designed to help guide physicians' therapeutic treatment decisions in Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). This patented assay is highly predictive for whether patients will respond to induction chemotherapy. Currently, no predictive diagnostics are available to patients with AML, and patient response rates to this highly toxic treatment regimen is approximately 50% in the adult AML population.
United States Patent numbers 8,187,885 and 8,214,157, also issued this month by the USPTO cover quantitative calibration of fluorescence instruments and multidimensional data analysis, respectively. Each of these areas are cornerstones of Nodality's proprietary platform that quantitatively measures multiple parameters to reveal cell signaling function. Nodality's systems biology approach is being applied to currently approved drugs to develop predictive assays as well as to drugs in development through collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
“These patents recognize Nodality's innovation and unique approach in this revolutionary area of molecular diagnostics,” said Michael Goldberg, Executive Chairman of the Board and interim CEO of Nodality. He added, “We are committed to applying our technology to improve the development of partners' novel therapies as well as developing clinically meaningful tests that enhance clinical decision making and patient care.”
Phil McGarrigle, Nodality's General Counsel and Chief IP Officer commented, “These new patents build on Nodality's growing intellectual property portfolio which includes over 35 internally generated patent families and nine in-licensed patents.”
About NodalityNodality is a venture-backed, South San Francisco-based personalized medicine biotechnology company focused on improving the development and clinical use of therapeutics in cancer and autoimmune disease through the application of its proprietary Single Cell Network Profiling (SCNP) technology platform. SCNP enables functional characterization of disease-associated signaling at the individual patient level, enabling optimization of treatment tailored to target the biology driving the disease. Nodality is applying SCNP to develop molecular diagnostics to improve clinical decision-making in cancer and autoimmune diseases, with the lead products targeting treatment management in hematological malignancies. Nodality is also collaborating with Pharma partners on patient stratification & companion diagnostics development, drug & disease profiling, determination of mechanism of action, mechanism-based competitive differentiation, whole blood PD assays, and biomarker discovery & development. These applications can result in increased probability of success, reduced timeline for clinical development, and differentiation from competitors in the marketplace. In February 2012, Nodality established its first multi-year pharma strategic collaboration with UCB Pharma S.A. (Euronext Brussels: UCB), utilizing its SCNP technology to assist the development of several UCB compounds focusing initially on immunology disorders.
About Single Cell Network ProfilingSingle Cell Network Profiling (SCNP) is a proprietary technology licensed from Stanford University to characterize cell signaling networks in patients with cancer and autoimmune diseases. SCNP, by measuring functional signaling network behavior at the level of the single cell, has several advantages over other currently used molecular technologies. These include unprecedented insight into the presence and clinical meaning of functional cellular heterogeneity in otherwise molecularly and phenotypically homogeneous tissues, including the identification of rare cell subsets such as drug-resistant and stem cells. As such, the technology has widespread application in both molecular diagnostic development as well as preclinical and clinical drug development.