SAN DIEGO, CA, Sept. 15, 2020 – Multimeric Biotherapeutics, Inc. (“Multimeric” or the “Company”), a biotechnology company developing immunotherapies and vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued Patent No. 10/774/149 B2, entitled “Composition Comprised of Antigen Linked to a TNF Superfamily Ligand.” Joint inventors are Geoffrey W. Stone and Richard S. Kornbluth.
The abstract contained in the Company’s patent application describes the invention as follows: “The invention provides fusion proteins comprising antigens of infectious disease agents and cancer cells linked to multiple-trimer forms of TNF SuperFamily (TNFSF) ligands. The TNFSFs serve as vaccine adjuvants for increas-ing the immune response to the antigens. In particular, a fusion polypeptide strand that self-assembles inside cells into a multiple-trimer form of CD40 ligand (CD40L) is provided. Other similar fusion proteins are also disclosed. The fusion proteins can be delivered to a host as isolated proteins, as nucleic acids used directly in DNA vaccination or carried and expressed by a viral vector such as adenovirus. In addition to use as a vaccine to prevent or ameliorate disease caused by an infectious agent, compositions of the invention may be used for the treatment of ongoing infection or for cancer immunotherapy.”
The experimental work supporting the patent application was performed in Dr. Stone’s lab at the University of Miami.
Richard S. Kornbluth, MD, PhD, Co-Inventor and Multimeric’s President & Chief Scientific Officer, commented: “With this second issued US patent for FortiVac, we can further protect this novel vaccine platform technology. The issue claims concert additional compositions of matter for FortiVac and helps to support the development of FortiVacTM as a widely applicable vaccine platform technology.”