The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued Patent Number 6,335,183, to Stressgen Biotechnologies Corporation for which the company has an exclusive worldwide license from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. The patent grants exclusivity for the method of inducing or enhancing an immune response in a patient by administering a pharmaceutical composition comprising a "fusion protein," a stress protein joined to a viral, cancer or HIV antigen, administered for the purpose of generating an antigen-specific immune response.

"The pre-GATT 17-year exclusivity of this patent will help ensure that our technology for developing heat shock protein fusions to treat viral diseases and cancers will remain proprietary. This is just the first of several patents on our platform technology that we believe will issue during 2002," said Daniel L. Korpolinski, President and Chief Executive Officer of Stressgen Biotechnologies Corporation. "Stressgen and any potential partner should be able to capitalize upon patent exclusivity through 2019 in marketing our fusion candidate for the treatment of human papillomavirus (HPV), which is currently in phase III clinical trials, our fusion candidate for hepatitis B virus, which is currently in early preclinical development, and our fusion candidates for additional diseases including herpes simplex virus and HIV."

"The goal of every biotechnology company is to have the exclusive right to market a compound such as our heat shock protein fusion candidate, HspE7. The recently announced clinical data for HspE7 suggest the immunotherapeutic will be a broad spectrum treatment for HPV-related genital warts and dysplasias with outstanding safety, efficacy and durability of treatment effect," said John R. Neefe, Vice President of Clinical Research and Regulatory Affairs for Stressgen.

"The need for more effective therapies for infectious diseases and cancers has prompted researchers to explore how our own immune system's powerful capabilities can be harnessed to fight the major diseases of mankind," said Richard A. Young, Member, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "I am excited that the discovery of heat shock proteins and fusions as powerful stimulants of the immune system have evolved to opportunities for new innovative therapeutic interventions."