DermTech Inc., of La Jolla, Calif., was issued U.S. Patent No. 7,297,480, titled "Method for Detection of Melanoma," which includes claims focused on noninvasive methods of detecting early stage melanoma and for staging, as well as claims for monitoring melanoma in a subject.

DiObex Inc., of San Francisco, was granted U.S. Patent No. 7,314,859, which covers the use of a very-low-dose glucagon, or DIO-901, in the prevention of insulin-induced hypoglycemia in diabetes patients.

GenHunter Corp., of Nashville, Tenn., was granted U.S. Patent No. 7,268,116, titled "Methods and Compositions For Producing Secreted Trimeric Receptor Analogs And Biologically Active Fusion Proteins." It covers the design and expression of any secreted therapeutic protein in disulfide bond-linked homo-trimeric forms.

Immunomedics Inc., of Morris Plains, N.J., was granted U.S. Patent No. 7,312,318, titled "Internalizing anti-CD74 antibodies and methods of use," which covers the composition of matter for humanized, chimeric and human anti-CD74 antibodies, CD74 antibody fusion proteins, immunoconjugates, vaccines and bispecific antibodies that bind to CD74.

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego, received U.S. Patent No. 7,314,887, titled "Thrombopoietin Activity Modulating Compounds and Methods," which relates to LGD-4665, the company's lead thrombopoietin receptor agonist and related compounds.

Morphotek Inc., of Exton, Pa., received U.S. Patent No. 7,235,643 B2, relating to certain methods of enhancing the affinity of monoclonal antibodies. It refers to the firm's Morphodoma technology, a whole genome evolution platform designed to enhance cells producing monoclonal antibodies to yield daughter cells producing antibodies with enhanced activity.

Nanogen Inc., of San Diego, was granted U.S. Patent No. RE39,816 (a reissue of U.S. Patent No. 6,461,828, titled "Conjunctive Analysis of Biological Marker Expression For Predicting Cardiac Mortality.") It relates to the combined use of a cardiac marker of cell injury with a marker of organ adaptation for prognosis of chronic congestive heart failure.

Nastech Pharmaceutical Co. Inc., of Bothell, Wash., received a notice of allowance for a patent, titled "Phase Displayed Trp Cage Ligands," which relates to a high-throughput method for identifying peptides that can bind to specific cell types.

Odyssey Thera Inc., of San Ramon, Calif., received U.S. Patent No. 7,306,914, titled "Protein-fragment Complementation Assays in whole animals: applications to drug efficacy, ADME, cancer biology, immunology, infectious disease and gene therapy." It's the 12th patent issued for the company's PCA process.

Oncolytics Biotech Inc., of Calgary, Alberta, was granted U.S. Patent No. 7,300,650, titled "Reovirus for the Treatment of Neoplasia," which covers methods of using the reovirus to treat cancers that have inactivated PKR, a host cellular protein responsible for preventing virus replication within a cell. Oncolytics also received U.S. Patent No. 7,306,902, titled "Oncolytic Viruses as Phenotyping Agents for Neoplasms," which describes methods of diagnosing cancers with unknown phenotypes by using oncolytic viruses that selectively replicate in cancer cells with known phenotypes.

Proteologics Inc., of Rehovot, Israel, received U.S. Patent No. 7,268,227, which covers siRNA molecules that can inhibit the expression of the company's antiviral drug target, hPOSH, a human protein characterized as a ubiquitin ligase essential for HIV biogenesis.