ImetelChat

The USPTO issued a new patent to Geron in April:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Pars ... S=AN/geron

The patent application may have been discussed here previously. This focuses on screening cancer patients to identify which would be most responsive to imetelstat-type treatment based on telomere length. It makes for interesting reading and I believe would be valuable additional IP that would be attractive to JNJ.

j6proulx, thank you for calling attention to this. I think we are seeing an FDA predilection for approaches that favor "personalized" therapy. One can envision a table of markers that might predict response such as this one re telomere length coupled with IL 8 levels etc. As I recall, telomere length subgroups were desperately sought to salvage the failed solid tumor studies in the Okarma days, it seems likely that perhaps it will take multiple markers for more accurate prediction rather than just one. Okarma once said CLL patients had the shortest of telomeres yet the very earliest studies proved disappointing. (For students of history, there was one patient who developed a cell lysis syndrome in the early CLL study that gave me hope...) bp