Glycosyn’s scientific founders are long-time collaborators who have worked together for more than 35 years as part of a multi-site NICHD-funded Program Project (HD 13021) entitled “The Role of Human Milk in Infant Nutrition and Health”. They are currently located in three academic institutions: Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Research Foundation (CCRF) in Cincinnati, Ohio (Dr. Ardythe Morrow), Boston College (Dr. David Newburg) in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Medicas y Nutricion in Mexico City, Mexico (Dr. Guillermo Ruiz-Palacios). Intellectual property that has arisen (and that will arise) from their joint research is administered centrally as part of a consortium arrangement among the three institutions, with CCRF being the lead institution. The University of Massachusetts Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University (Dr. Newburg’s previous institutions) and the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicalé (INSERM) in Paris, France are also parties to the consortium on certain intellectual property.
Glycosyn has six current exclusive licensing agreements with external parties on key intellectual property of importance to the Company; four on IP developed by the consortium, one on a Boston College patent application, and one on a joint application between Glycosyn and Boston College. All of these patent applications have published, initial claims have issued for two of them, and the remainders are pending. In addition, nine patent applications have been filed by CSO Dr. John McCoy and others on Glycosyn production technology inventions, on proprietary genes and their uses, and on novel bacterial strains. The first of these Glycosyn applications, covering the novel α1,2 fucosyltransferase used to produce 2’-FL in our production strain, issued as a US patent during 2015. An additional Glycosyn patent application is currently in preparation.
In addition Glycosyn continuously reviews its intellectual property portfolio in order to ensure that each licensed or owned patent continues to contribute to the Company strategy and to current and future products.
