A Medical Device Daily

Advance Nanotech (New York), a developer of chemical detection systems, said it has been issued a U.S. patent for its 3D miniature pre-concentrator and inlet sample heater application, originally filed in September of 2005.

Pre-concentrators are used to collect molecules that are present in low concentrations. Accordingly, pre-concentrators increase the sensitivity of our products and, in particular, are useful in aiding the detection of trace compounds such as drugs, explosives, and other toxic agents. This patent represents significant technical advances in the miniaturization of the pre- concentrator, the company said.

Advance Nanotech subsidiary, Owlstone Nanotech, said that this is the first patent to be issued from its intellectual property portfolio. Over the past two years, Owlstone has filed 18 additional patent applications related to its chemical detection IP.

Owlstone is an Advance Nanotech subsidiary developing nanotechnology-based chemical detection products. Its initial commercial product, the Owlstone Detector, is a dime-sized device that can be programmed to detect a range of chemical agents that may be present in extremely small quantities.

In other patent news:

  • Exact Sciences (Marlborough, Massachusetts) reported that the European Patent Office (EPO) has upheld a patent owned by the company pertaining to aspects of its DNA technologies. Exact said that the decision by the EPO's Opposition Division was in response to a challenge by a major diagnostics company seeking to invalidate the patent claims. "We are very pleased with the decision of the EPO in support of our European patent, one of the many patents in our broad intellectual property portfolio that covers a wide range of technologies relating to cancer detection," said Jeffrey Luber, Exact Sciences' president. Exact has a portfolio of over 110 issued patents and over 60 pending patent applications in the U.S., Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere. Exact's focus is the development of screening technologies for colorectal cancer.
  • Odyssey Thera (San Ramon, California) reported that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted U.S. Patent No. 7,306,914, titled "Protein-fragment Complementation Assays (PCA) in whole animals: applications to drug efficacy, ADME, cancer biology, immunology, infectious disease and gene therapy." This is the 12th patent issued for Odyssey Thera's PCA process. The patent describes a method for detecting protein-protein interactions in living cells and animals. Protein interactions define the intricate biochemical networks in living cells, and are used at Odyssey Thera to monitor drug response. The invention makes it possible to monitor specific biochemical parameters, including the extent and kinetics of drug target modulation, in a live subject, the company said. "This patent extends our broad estate in drug discovery technologies," said John Westwick, PhD, Odyssey Thera CEO and co-author on the patent. "One of the most challenging aspects of drug discovery is transitioning drug candidates from the test tube, to native targets in living cells, and from there to live subjects. With this invention, drug discovery and development are achieved with a single system that faithfully monitors the activity of a drug at each step. The approaches described here will significantly increase the value of live subject imaging efforts." Odyssey Thera is a drug discovery company building therapeutic pipelines for chronic diseases.