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Marina Biotech Announces Worldwide Non-Exclusive Licensing Agreement
Marina Biotech Announces Worldwide Non-Exclusive Licensing Agreement.
About this update from Adhera Therapeutics Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"Marina Biotech Announces Worldwide Non-Exclusive Licensing Agreement for Nucleic Acid Chemistry to Tekmira Pharmaceuticals\n \nBothell, WA, November 29, 2012 – Marina Biotech, Inc. (OTC Pink:MRNA), a leading oligonucleotide-based drug discovery and development company, announced today that it has entered into a license agreement with Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation (Nasdaq: TKMR, TSX: TKM), where Marina will provide Tekmira a worldwide, non-exclusive license to Marina Biotech’s Unlocked Nucleobase Analog (UNA) technology for the development of RNA interference therapeutics. Tekmira will have full responsibility for the development and commercialization of any products arising under the Agreement. Under terms of the Agreement, Marina Biotech will receive an upfront payment plus milestone and royalty payments on products developed by Tekmira that use UNA technology. Further terms of the Agreement were not disclosed. \n“We are pleased to enter into this agreement with Tekmira, a leader in the development of RNAi-based therapeutics,” stated J. Michael French, President and Chief Executive Officer of Marina Biotech. “Marina Biotech’s UNA technology is quite novel. Besides providing drug-like properties to an RNAi drug, UNAs also eliminate passenger strand activity as well as reduce guide strand mediated microRNA-like off-target activity. The result is that UNAs are able to significantly increase target specificity of an RNAi compound to its gene target. We look forward to a continued relationship with the great team at Tekmira.”\nAbout Unlocked Nucleobase Analogs\nUnlocked Nucleobase Analogs (UNA) are acyclic ribonucleoside analogs in which the bond between C2’ and C3’ atoms is broken. This change in sugar structure renders this nucleoside analog very flexible. This characteristic is in sharp contrast to the widely used locked nucleosides that lock the sugar conformation by a bridged bond between C2’ and C4’ atoms. The flexible nature of UNA reduces the binding affinity between two strands of an RNAi drug and gives unique characteristics to its genes silencing abilities. Marina Biotech has demonstrated that UNA has the potential to improve RNAi therapeutics by increasing stability and reducing sense and antisense mediated off-target eff...