On Tuesday November 12, 2019, KEI and the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT) filed comments on the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) “Prospective Grant of an Exclusive Patent License: The Development of an Anti-GPC3 Radionuclide Immunoconjugate for the Treatment of GPC3-Expressing Cancers” (84 FR 57743). The license would cover monoclonal antibodies specific to the GPC3 gene, and would be used for treatment of GPC3-expressing cancers, which include hepatocellular carcinomas, melanoma, lung and ovarian cancer, among others.
The proposed exclusive license would be granted to Xsto BioSciences, Inc. The Federal Register Notice indicates that the company is located in San Carlos, California, but the California Secretary of State business registry shows that Xsto was registered in California on January 5, 2018 and then dissolved on November 26, 2018.
KEI and UACT asked that if the NIH proceeds with granting the exclusive license, that they include several provisions in the license to protect the public’s interest, including a provision that the exclusive license not extend to countries with a per capita less than 30 percent of the United States – in order to support access to the resultant treatment for patients in developing countries.
A PDF of the full comments filed is available here: KEI_UACT_Comments_NIH_Exclusive_License_XstoBioSciences_12Nov2019