Immunomedics Announces U.S. Patent Issuance For IMMU-114 - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Immunomedics Inc. (IMMU) reported the issuance of U.S. patent no. 8,722,047 for the company's patent application "Humanized anti-HLA-DR antibodies," with an expiration date of May 26, 2026.

The new patent concerns compositions of humanized anti-HLA-DR antibodies of use for disease therapy. The allowed claims protect IMMU-114, that is being investigated as a monotherapy in a newly-opened Phase I dose-escalation study in patients with relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma or chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

HLA-DR is a receptor located on the cell surface whose role is to present foreign objects to the immune system for the purpose of eliciting an immune response. Increased presence of HLA-DR in hematologic cancers has made it a prime target for antibody therapy.

IMMU-114 has exhibited in vitro and in vivo cytotoxicity on several human lymphoma cell lines, and a panel of leukemia cell lines. Moreover, in one animal model of human NHL, treatment with the anti-HLA-DR antibody was more effective than rituximab in yielding 100% long-term survival.