Marina Biotech and Hongene Biotechnology sign license deal

Marina will receive royalties from the sale of CRN-based reagents. Moreover, this Agreement will establish a ready supply of CRN amidites for Marina’s therapeutic research and development effots.

Hongene Biotechnology general manager Wei Jiang said: "This alliance with Marina is important for Hongene as it exemplifies our strategy to provide a wide variety of high quality nucleosides and nucleotides to those companies and academics advancing cutting edge nucleic acid therapeutics.

"We have entered into this agreement because we believe Marina’s proprietary CRN chemistry provides unique benefits to oligonucleotide constructs, and offers a new research and development tool to the field of nucleic acid based therapeutics. We believe we will be in a position to offer CRN-C and -T amidites by the end of this year and CRN-A and -G amidites early next year."

Conformationally Restricted Nucleotides are patented analogs in which a chemical bridge connects the C2′ and C4′ carbons of ribose. Ribose, a five-carbon ring-like structure, forms the central component of a nucleotide (comprised of a nucleobase, ribose, and phosphate group).

The chemical bridge in the ribose of a CRN locks the ribose in a fixed conformation, which in turn restricts the flexibility of the nucleobase and phosphate group. Substitution of a CRN within an RNA- or DNA-based oligonucleotide has the advantages of increased hybridization affinity and enhanced resistance to nuclease degradation.

CRN technology provides a direct means of developing highly potent and specific oligonucleotide-based therapeutics to target messenger RNAs or microRNAs. These targets connect disease pathways that are typically "undruggable" or "difficult to target" with small molecules or monoclonal antibodies, and may be critical in disease areas with significant unmet needs, such as rare diseases, inflammation, metabolic disease, and cancers.

Marina Biotech president and CEO Michael French said: "We are extremely pleased to have entered into this agreement with Hongene.

"We are focused on the advancement of nucleic acid therapeutics for the treatment of rare diseases and believe that the CRN chemistry is critical to the development of highly active single and double stranded oligonucleotide agents.

"In particular, CRN-based oligonucleotides will be key to the further development of our preclinical programs in myotonic dystrophy and Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy. Hongene will be able to provide Marina and the research community a stable supply of CRN-based oligonucleotides which we hope will, in turn, allow for the further understanding of both disease pathophysiology and the potential for nucleic acid therapeutic intervention."