OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc, announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has issued United States Patent Number 7,569,551 entitled 'Chemo-and Radiation-sensitization of Cancer by Antisense TRPM-2 Oligodeoxynucleotides', on the method of using OncoGenex' lead cancer drug candidate, OGX-011, to treat certain cancers. The patent, licensed from The University of British Columbia, includes coverage for the method for treating cancers that express the protein clusterin using OGX-011, or any other clusterin antisense oligonucleotide, in combination with any chemotherapeutic agent or radiation therapy.

"The issuance of this patent expands our intellectual property estate for treating clusterin-expressing cancers using antisense therapy and provides us with a broad patent that applies well beyond prostate cancer," said Scott Cormack, president and CEO of OncoGenex. "Importantly, given that our current phase-3 plans include combining OGX-011 with chemotherapy, this patent directly relates to our current method of using OGX-011."

OncoGenex Pharma owns or has licenses to approximately 67 granted or issued US and foreign patents, and approximately 140 pending US and foreign patent applications worldwide.

OncoGenex is a biopharmaceutical company committed to the development and commercialization of new therapies that address unmet needs in the treatment of cancer.