Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Inovio), incorporated on June 15, 2001, is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, which is involved in developing deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) immunotherapies and vaccines focused on treating and preventing cancers and infectious diseases. The Company’s DNA-based immunotherapies, in combination with its electroporation delivery devices, generate immune responses, in particular T cells, in the body to fight target diseases. The Company has completed, current or planned clinical programs of its SynCon immunotherapies for human papillomavirus (HPV)-caused pre-cancers and cancers, influenza, prostate cancer, breast/lung/pancreatic cancer, hepatitis C virus (HCV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Ebola, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Zika virus.
The patent granted to the Trustees of The University of Pennsylvania has been licensed exclusively to Inovio under its existing license agreement with the university.
The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania & Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. filed patent application numbered 3357/DELNP/2011 that is titled IMPROVED HCV VACCINES AND METHODS FOR USING THE SAME. This patent application has been granted as Patent Number 312682.
The invention covers Chemical compounds. The invention relates to improved anti-HCV immunogens and nucleic acid molecules that encode them. Immunogens disclosed include those having consensus HCV genotype I a/1 b NS3 and NS4A. Pharmaceutical composition, recombinant vaccines comprising and live attenuated vaccines are disclosed as well methods of inducing an immune response in an individual against HCV are disclosed.
During patent examination, the patent examiner raised objections under Section 3(d) of the Indian Patents Act, wherein the examiner stated that the Claim(s) 1-19 are statutorily non-patentable. It is evident from cited documents D1-D6 that DNA HCV genotype 1a/1b consensus sequences of NS3/NS4A vaccines are already well known, it is not clear if the claimed vaccine (nucleic acid/polypeptide) act to provide an enhancement of the known efficacy i.e., demonstrate a greater technical effect and/or differ significantly in properties with respect to the known vaccine.
As a response to the said objection, the applicant claimed that the resultant compound stands different by the additive compound.
Advocate Rahul Dev is a Patent Attorney & International Business Lawyer practicing Technology, Intellectual Property & Corporate Laws. He is reachable at rd (at) patentbusinesslawyer (dot) com & @rdpatentlawyer on Twitter.
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