Medigene AG

US patent office prolongs term of Medigene's patent relating to dendritic cell (DC) vaccines to 2031

Medigene AG / Medigene AG: US patent office prolongs term of Medigene's patent relating to dendritic cell (DC) vaccines to 2031 . Processed and transmitted by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

Martinsried/Munich, 28 May 2015. Biotechnology company Medigene AG (MDG1, Frankfurt, Prime Standard) announces that the US Patent Office has prolonged the term of patent no. 8,679,840 titled "Composition for the preparation of mature dendritic cells" to the year 2031. The previous term would have ended in 2028. The patent protects the process of generating mature polarised dendritic cells developed by the scientists of Medigene Immunotherapies GmbH. Dendritic cells generated with this process are being used in the ongoing clinical trials using Medigene's DC vaccines. Additionally, Medigene announced the European issue of the respective patent in March 2015. Medigene holds an exclusive licence on these patents which are central for the DC programme.

About Medigene's DC vaccines: The platform for the development of antigen-tailored DC vaccines is the most advanced platform of the three highly innovative and complementary immunotherapy platforms of Medigene Immunotherapies.

The DC vaccines are currently being evaluated in a company-sponsored clinical trial in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) as well as in two ongoing clinical investigator-initiated trials: a clinical phase I/II trial in AML at the Ludwig-Maximilian University Hospital Großhadern, Munich, and a clinical phase II trial in prostate cancer at the Oslo University Hospital. Moreover, a compassionate use program is being conducted at the Department of Cellular Therapy at the Oslo University Hospital.

Medigene's dendritic cell product platform allows the design of new generation dendritic cell vaccines. Dendritic cells can take up antigens efficiently, process them and present them on their surface in a form that can induce antigen-specific T cells to proliferate and mature. This way T cells can recognize and eliminate antigen-bearing tumour cells. Dendritic cells can also induce natural killer cells (NK cells) to become active and attack tumour cells. Scientists of Medigene Immunotherapies have developed new, fast and efficient methods for preparing autologous (patient-specific) mature dendritic cells which have relevant characteristics to activate both T cells and NK cells. The dendritic cells can be loaded with various tumour antigens to treat different types of cancer and are designed for treatment of minimal residual disease or use in combination therapies.