Millennium Issued Patent For Weight Disorder Treatment
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. a patent covering methods for identifying new drugs that may be useful for the treatment of obesity and other weight disorders.
The patent (No. 5,853,975), titled "Methods for Identifying Compositions for the Treatment of Body Weight Disorders, Including Obesity," covers drug screening methods for identifying compounds, such as small molecules, that modulate the activity of Uncoupling Protein Homologue (UCPH), a protein that is involved in human energy expenditure and weight modulation.
UCPH is a mitochondrial inner-membrane transporter protein involved in human energy expenditure that burns excess calories by uncoupling oxidative phosphorylation. The uncoupling process allows excess calories to be converted into heat rather than being stored as fat. Tissues such as muscle and fat dissipate caloric energy through heat generation. Prior to the discovery of UCPH by Millennium scientists, however, the molecules involved in this process were unknown. Millennium scientists, as well as others, have demonstrated that UCPH levels are normally regulated by food intake and fat mass, implying that UCPH regulates body weight.
Dr. Louis A. Tartaglia, senior director, metabolic diseases and oncology of Millennium, is the named inventor on this patent. UCPH is the same gene as UCP2, which was described by researchers at University of California Davis Medical Center, Duke University Medical Center and French Centre National de la Recherche.
Millennium's UCPH patent portfolio includes four issued U.S. patents and a number of pending patent applications. In addition to the new drug screening patent, the Company has received U.S. Patent No. 5,741,666 for UCPH gene sequences; U.S. Patent No. 5,861,485 for UCPH proteins; and U.S. Patent No. 5,702,902 for diagnostic methods which involve an analysis of the transcriptional profile or protein level of UCPH.
For more information: Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., 640 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Telephone: 617-374-7600. Fax: 617-374-9379.