Seattle Genetics, the developer of antibody treatments for cancer, said today it has received a new patent which will extend its proprietary rights to its lead drug for Hodgkin’s disease until at least 2025. The U.S. patent covers technology for a linker that selectively unloads a potent toxin called auristatin on the target cell of interest. This is the technology Seattle Genetics uses in its lead “empowered antibody” program called brentuximab vedotin (SGN-35), and which several of its partners use under licenses. Seattle Genetics expects to seek FDA approval of brentuximab vedotin to treat Hodgkin’s disease in the first half of 2011.
Author: Luke Timmerman
Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.
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