Epimmune Inc, a biotechnology company focused on the development of pharmaceutical products using multiple, specific epitopes to activate the body's immune system, announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently issued the Company a patent related to the Company's Padre technology. The patent, United States Patent Number 6,413,935 entitled, "Induction of Immune Response Against Desired Determinants," includes claims covering the induction of immune responses using the Company's Padre technology combined with disease-specific antigens. The patent also includes claims addressing different types of disease-specific antigens including proteins, lipids and other immunogens - important targets for most infectious diseases, cancers and autoimmune diseases.

Padre, a family of small, synthetic proprietary molecules that are potent immunostimulants, is used in Epimmune's therapeutic and preventative vaccine programs including those targeting HIV and lung and colon cancers. Epimmune has also licensed Padre to other companies for use in inducing immune responses against a variety of disease antigens, including Genencor for use in their therapeutic vaccines targeting hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human papilloma virus; Pharmexa A/S for controlling autoimmune diseases; Elan for targeting neurodegenerative conditions including Alzheimer's disease and Biosite for use in discovering new pharmaceutical drugs.

In published scientific articles, Padre has been shown to be important for inducing immune responses to antigens against which the immune system has a difficult time generating an appropriate immune response because of continuous exposure to the antigen - so called "immune tolerance." Breaking immune tolerance is critical for effective treatment of cancer, chronic infectious disease and autoimmune disease using therapeutic vaccines.

"Epimmune continues to invest in strengthening its patent portfolio," said Emile Loria, President and Chief Executive Officer of Epimmune. "For a biotechnology company this is an essential element of building value for the business, both in terms of our own products and for our partners and collaborators. Epimmune currently has 54 U.S. and foreign issued and granted patents with more than 130 pending U.S. and foreign applications."