License may allow for more efficient triggering of RNAi.
RXi Pharmaceuticals secured a nonexclusive, worldwide research and therapeutic license from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to their shRNAi technology. The licensed technology potentially allows for the more efficient triggering of RNAi and includes the use of shRNAi either delivered as RNA compositions or encoded by DNA constructs. Patents covering this technology are currently pending.
“With this license for all human therapeutic areas, we gain the well-validated advantage of shRNAi—which is reported to be up to 10- to 100-fold more potent compared with standard siRNA,” says Tod Woolf, Ph.D., RXi’s president and CEO.
The technology licensed by RXi was developed in the laboratory of Gregory J. Hannon, Ph.D., a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
