LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Biotechnology company Oxford BioDynamics announced the grant of a "key patent" in the United States by the US Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday, covering its 'EpiSwitch' novel technology platform.
The AIM-traded firm said the patent, number 9777327, covered its proprietary EpiSwitch technology designs for the "high-resolution discovery and monitoring" of regulatory conditional chromosome conformation signatures, as part of the regulatory genome architecture.

As a biomarker modality, chromosome conformations had been shown to deliver "highly informative" stratifications of complex patient phenotypes, assist in better disease understanding and target identifications, and show high concordance with complex genetic and gene expression profiles, Oxford's board explained.

It said predictive and prognostic stratifications developed by OBD on the basis of its proprietary EpiSwitch technology already offered "significant improvements" in patient stratifications, significant de-risking of drug discovery and development, and upgraded regulatory and market protection.

The company said the patent would extend coverage of Oxford BioDynamics' proprietary technology platform into another important market for the company.

Counterparts to the patent had already been granted in Europe, China, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa.

"The US is a key target market for Oxford BioDynamics and we are delighted to announce the grant of this patent covering use of EpiSwitch in this region," said Oxford BioDynamics CEO Christian Hoyer Millar.

"The grant of this patent in the US is a significant milestone for the company.

"It adds further strength to our global intellectual property portfolio as we position the company for future growth."

Hoyer Millar said that, with a number of "significant achievements" in patients' stratifications that OBD had delivered already, the board welcomed the milestone as recognition of its proprietary technology.

"We believe EpiSwitch is a valuable and leading industry solution capable of characterising structural modifications to genome architecture that have a profound effect on health."

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