Issuance of a new U.S. patent covering ORCA’s T1 oncolytic adenovirus technology

January 06, 2015

Nijmegen, The Netherlands – January 5th, 2015 – ORCA Therapeutics BV, a pioneer in the development of innovative oncolytic immunotherapies for treatment of cancer, announced today that it has secured key intellectual property rights for its T1 oncolytic adenovirus technology. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a core patent entitled “Adenovirus with mutations in the endoplasmic reticulum retention domain of the E3-19K protein and their use in cancer treatment”. This newly issued U.S. patent contains composition and method of use claims covering oncolytic adenoviruses based on the T1 technology displaying improved potency to kill cancer cells.

“This patent further strengthens ORCA’s intellectual property position and protects our proprietary product candidates,” said Janneke Meulenberg, Chief Executive Officer of ORCA Therapeutics. “The T1 technology is embedded in ORCA’s lead compound ORCA-010 that is being developed for prostate cancer. The issuance of this U.S. patent is an important milestone in protecting ORCA-010 in the largest pharmaceutical markets in the world.” It belongs to the Company's key patent family, which also includes European patent EP2137301, Chinese patent 200880008280.3 and Hong Kong patent HK1143992. Additional patents are being prosecuted in Canada and Japan.

T1 technology

ORCA is developing innovative anticancer immunotherapies based on adenovirus, a naturally occurring common cold virus. By genetic modification of the DNA of the adenovirus, it is converted to an oncolytic virus, which kills cancer cells and induces an anti-tumor immune response. The T1 mutation refers to a specific mutation resulting in enhanced viral release from infected human cancer cells and cancer-associated fibroblasts in vitro, and in enhanced antitumor activity when injected intratumorally or systemically in different models in vivo (Gros et al. Cancer Research 2008; Dong et al. Hum. Gene Ther. 2014). The T1 mutation is a single Adenine insertion at position 445 of the nucleotide sequence of the E3/19K gene of adenovirus, which was identified after natural selection of random mutated adenoviruses in tumor xenografts. Incorporation of the T1 mutation in oncolytic adenovirus results in improved spread through the tumor.

About ORCA Therapeutics

ORCA Therapeutics BV is a biopharmaceutical company developing a pipeline of innovative anticancer therapies based on the highly promising approach of Oncolytic Replication Competent Agents (ORCA). ORCA Therapeutics’ technology and IP portfolio originates from the groundbreaking research performed at the Department of Medical Oncology at the VU University Medical Center (VUmc) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The company has a platform of technologies to engineer highly potent oncolytic adenoviruses. ORCA Therapeutics is currently preparing its lead product ORCA-010 for testing in patients with locally recurrent prostate cancer.