Sonnet BioTherapeutics (NASDAQ:SONN) announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted a notice of allowance (NOA) for a second patent in the IL-18 variant protein field.
According to Sonnet, the patent covers the composition of matter of specific amino acid substitutions of its IL-18 binding protein resistant variant protein. The company has also announced the release of a Virtual Investor “What This Means” segment to discuss the patent.
In a statement, Pankaj Mohan, Ph.D., founder, and CEO of Sonnet, commented, “I believe that Sonnet has become of one of the few companies that hold proprietary rights to IL-18BPR, which could be a highly valuable cytokine for cancer patients. This patent covers the composition of matter of the amino acid sequence of our human IL-18BPR variant protein, which bolsters our intellectual property position and provides further validation to our approach that when IL-18BPR is synergistically combined with IL-12. We believe we will have the potential to develop an important therapeutic asset for oncology and cell-based therapy.”
“Additionally, we feel that this patent enables us to explore opportunities for IL-18BPR to be licensed independent of our FHAB platform. We continue to believe that novel bifunctional molecules such as SON-1411, when combined with our proprietary FHAB platform, have the potential to demonstrate improved tumor targeting, extended half-life and an enhanced therapeutic window,” Dr. Mohan said.
