Asuragen, Inc. Announces New Notices of Allowance from USPTO Related to the Diagnostic Applications of Cancer-Related miRNAs at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference

(BUSINESS WIRE)--Asuragen, Inc., a leader in the development of molecular diagnostics, announced today at the 29th Annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco that it had received Notices of Allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) for claims related to the use of mir-21 and mir-30a as diagnostics in lung cancer. Human miR-21 has been identified as being highly expressed in lung cancer when compared with its expression in normal lung tissue, and, as a result, may be an excellent marker for use as a diagnostic for lung cancer. Asuragen plans to launch its first miRNA kit, a miR-21 (RUO)* kit for the detection of mir-21 expression levels, in the second quarter of this year. Asuragen has a broad IP portfolio with over 69 allowed and pending patents related to miRNA including some of the earliest functional diagnostic applications for a number of key miRNAs associated with oncology diseases.