Advancis Pharmaceutical Corp., of Gaithersburg, Md., received U.S. Patent No. 6,544,555 titled "Antibiotic Product, Use and Formulation Thereof," and U.S. Patent No. 6,541,014 titled "Antiviral Product, Use and Formulation Thereof." Advancis said they provide broad protection over its pulsatile approach to dosing antibiotic and antiviral drugs, solidifying its technology position within the anti-infectives market.

Akceli Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., was awarded U.S. Patent No. 6,544,790 titled "Reverse Transfection Method." Licensed exclusively from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Akceli said the patent is the first to be issued in a series of filings covering microarrays of transfected mammalian cells.

Curis Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., was issued a U.S. patent covering a class of compounds it is developing for use as cancer treatments. The compounds are designed to inhibit a biological signaling pathway controlled by the Hedgehog protein.

Entropin Inc., of Indio, Calif., was allowed U.S. Patent No. 6,482,831 titled "Covalently Coupled Benzoylecgonine, Ecgonine and Ecgonidine Derivatives." It claims a family of chemical structures built around the chemical building blocks, benzoylecgonine, ecgonine and ecgonidine.

Geron Corp., of Menlo Park, Calif., was granted U.S. Patent No. 6,548,298 with claims directed to the use of oligonucleotide drugs to inhibit telomerase in patients. Geron said it continues preclinical testing of such telomerase inhibitors, including GRN163, for use in treating a range of human cancers. Separately, Geron was issued U.S. Patent No. 6,548,741 describing an improved method for cloning pigs. Its inventors include scientists at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, who cloned Dolly the sheep. The patent, the first directly assigned to Geron related to animal cloning, teaches how the Dolly method can be adapted to clone pigs more efficiently by maturing the recipient pig oocyte using defined culture conditions. Geron also owns exclusive rights to three Roslin patents that cover fundamental nuclear transfer technology used in cloning animals.