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The
bio-innovation conference: where biotechnology and intellectual
property meet
Maine Science and Technology Foundation
June 27, 2002
DAY
ONE
Intellectual
Property Strategies for Biotech Businesses and Research
Institutions
William
Harris, MD, Ph.D., MariCal, Portland, ME
David
Brook, Esq., Hamilton Brook Smith & Reynolds, Concord,
MA
Moderator:
Jane Sheehan, Esq., Foundation for Blood Research, Scarborough,
ME
For
MariCal, developing biotechnology products for farmed
fish began with human biomedical research at Brigham
and Women's Hospital, where scientists discovered calcium
ion receptor proteins, known as CaRs. Two of MariCal's
founders were involved in isolating the receptors and
teamed with William Harris to investigate Cars role
in fish.
Although
the researchers knew that Cars helped regulate human
biological functions, MariCal's founding was based on
the finding that Cars work as salinity sensors in fish.
Harris said one of MariCal's founding principles was
to use that discovery and "essentially fly under the
radar screen for the first three years of our existence
and develop our intellectual property portfolio."
Harris
asked a lot of the portfolio: proprietary technology
for commercialization into a major product that could
earn self-sustaining revenue. The company identified
farmed Atlantic salmon as its first market. Aquaculture
produces 500 million fish annually, and that number
grows about 12 percent each year; Harris said aquaculture
and marine farming are the fastest growing sector of
agribusiness. MariCal located in Maine because Maine
leads the nation in aquaculture production, including
farmed salmon.
MariCal's
first product is SuperSmolt, a technology that helps
juvenile farmed salmon, called smolts, adapt to salt
water after being raised in fresh water. Harris said
SuperSmolt enables fish farmers to minimize losses due
to stress and disease, and MariCal is working to develop
new technologies to help other fish adapt.
Attorney
David Brook discussed MariCal's intellectual property
as a case study, noting that when the human calcium
receptor was discovered at Brigham and Women's Hospital,
the hospital "granted an exclusive license to IP covering
this to NPS Pharmaceuticals."
But
MariCal, said Brook, "took an exclusive worldwide license
under the BWH patent applications for aquatic species"
and also entered a cross-license agreement with NPs,
agreeing to share data on their mutually exclusive fields.
"A very smart move on MariCal's part," said Brook, that
includes extending rights, for example, to MariCal if
NPs makes a discovery that has applications for fish
but not humans.
After
finishing shark research, Brook said MariCal "isolated
and cloned calcium receptors from a number of other
fish and a number of different organs within fish and
filed patent applications," which he said were generally
DNA sequences. The patents serve as MariCal's basis
for developing "a number of interesting processes based
on that fundamental understanding [of calcium receptors],"
including SuperSmolt, said Brook.
Brook
said the patent field has changed since he graduated
from law school when "we patented the mousetrap. Or
the improved mousetrap. But what do we patent today
in biotech? Not the mousetrap, the mouse."
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