Cellular Genomics Inc announced that the European Patent Office has granted the Company European Patent No. 1140938, which covers general methods for discovering enzyme inhibitors, as well as methods and compositions of a class of specific inhibitors of protein kinases, a major class of drug targets. The Company was granted a U.S. Patent for this technology in May of 2002.

"This additional patent for our proprietary kinase technology helps to secure our commercial position in both the key U.S. and European markets," said Louis Matis, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cellular Genomics. "Over the past 12 months, we have been very active with partnering efforts for our core technology, establishing research collaborations with major pharmaceutical and biotech companies such as Pfizer Inc, Serono S.A. and Schering AG. In addition, we have made significant strides in developing this technology for accelerating our own internal drug discovery and development initiatives, where we have generated potent, selective lead compounds in three distinct programs that are being advanced toward the clinic for multiple clinical indications in cancer and autoimmune and inflammatory disease."

CGI's cutting-edge approach is based on the discovery of Analog Sensitive Kinase Alleles (ASKAs). ASKAs are genetically modified kinases that retain all the functions of normal kinases, but can be potently inhibited with exquisite specificity by proprietary small molecule analog inhibitors. Cellular Genomics holds the exclusive worldwide license to this broadly enabling chemical genetics technology, which is being directly applied to multiple facets of the drug discovery process. These include cell pathway based target identification, rigorous, pharmaceutically relevant in vivo target validation, proprietary drug screens, and in vivo systems that provide key therapeutic index and drug safety information to guide the selection of optimal drug candidates for clinical development.

The inventor of the technology is Dr. Kevan Shokat, formerly a professor at Princeton University and currently at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Shokat is one of CGI's scientific founders and a member of the CGI Scientific Advisory Board.