Aveo Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company leveraging breakthrough discoveries in cancer biology to discover, develop and commercialize targeted oncology therapies, announced that on May 13, 2008, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted US Patent No. 7,371,515 covering Aveo's Mammalian Second Site Suppressor (MaSS) screen technology for identifying small molecule and antibody targets functionally relevant to cancer cell proliferation and survival. This patent adds to the intellectual property surrounding Aveo's proprietary and innovative cancer biology platform.
"We are very pleased to receive this patent recognizing Aveo's MaSS screen technology, the cornerstone of our unique biology platform, and our innovative work in antibody and small molecule target identification for cancer," said Tuan Ha-Ngoc, president and chief executive officer of AVEO Pharmaceuticals. "Currently, available genetic screens used to develop new cancer therapies utilize cell culture models that cannot possibly capture the complex interactions occurring in real tumour environments. Our cutting-edge, in vivo MaSS screen technology identifies more relevant cancer targets which, together with our response biomarker platform, enable Aveo to be more efficient and effective in our antibody discovery and translational research efforts".
Aveo has built a collection of proprietary inducible in vivo cancer models for multiple applications. Each of these tissue-specific cancer models (e.g. lung, colon, breast, etc.) is engineered to contain signature genetic mutations (e.g., HER2, EGFR, etc.) that are present in human disease. To exploit the inducible tumour models for target identification, Aveo has developed proprietary functional genetic screens to identify novel tumour targets. Aveo's MaSS screen technology provides the opportunity to identify, in an unbiased fashion, gene targets that can functionally drive the growth of tumours that have been engineered to contain genetic lesions relevant to human cancer. For a variety of reasons, including the preservation of critical tumour/stromal interactions, these models provide an optimal tool for identifying both small molecule targets as well as cell-surface targets and secreted targets that are amenable to targeting with antibodies and other biologics.