PIUG 2021 - Thursday (Biotech)

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PIUG 2021  BIOTECH DAY  Virtual Meeting

 T H U R S D A Y M O R N I N G 8 : 0 0 A M – 12 : 1 0 P M

Chimeric Antigen Receptor Immunotherapy – Beyond T-cell Dominique Manu (European Patent Office), Björn Jürgens (Innovation and Development Agency of Andalusia) and Nigel Clarke (Independent Consultant) 11:00 – 11:35 am  ABSTRACT In 2017 the European Patent Office completed a patent landscape study into the emerging technology of chimeric antigen receptor – genetically engineered T-cell - immunotherapy. The study revealed the growth of patent activity in autologous immunotherapies directed mainly against human haematological malignancies. In the few intervening years the field has not only expanded in terms of volume of activity but also in terms of the scientific and technical scope. Our latest research completed in 2020 has identified developments in non-oncological therapies, the use of NK and NKT cells, and allogeneic transplants.  BIOGRAPHIES Björn Jürgens is senior analyst at the patent information centre CITPIA of the Innovation and Development Agency of Andalusia, a major Spanish public institution dedicated to innovation and R&D fostering of SMEs. He has worked for 15 years in the field of patent analytics and competitive intelligence and has extensive practical experience in patent searching and patent databases. Björn is actively involved in the PATLIB project from the European Patent Office and the Enterprise Europe Network for technology transfer from the European Commission. Furthermore he works as IPR ambassador from the EU IP Helpdesk network since 2016. He regularly speaks in international conferences and has published articles in peer reviewed journals about patent databases and patent landscaping. Björn has an academic background in Information and Knowledge Management at the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt (Germany), a Master’s degree in Information Science and a PhD in the field of bibliometric patent analysis, both from the University of Granada (Spain). Dominique Manu joined the EPO in 2005. He is a patent examiner specialized in the field of cellular immunotherapy; a field which is now dominated by applications on chimeric antigen receptors. Before joining the EPO, Dominique did his PhD on the function of oestrogen receptors in osteoblasts at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg Germany. Nigel Clarke is recently retired from the EPO and an independent consultant. Until recently he managed patent knowledge research projects focussing on future and emerging technologies, such as Blockchain, graphene, quantum, and cancer immunotherapy. Research results have been published in leading peer reviewed journals and on the EPO’s “Patent insight reports” web pages. He joined the EPO as patent examiner in electron and ion optics and subsequently became IT manager. For many years he was department head responsible for Espacenet and the European Patent Register. Leaving academia, Nigel started work in the UK Scientific Civil Service, mainly on focused energy beams for microanalysis. He published numerous scientific papers. Nigel studied physical chemistry at Exeter University and holds a PhD in neutron science. He carried out post-doctoral research on carbon fibres at Surrey University. He holds memberships of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Institute of Physics and is a Chartered Scientist, UK Science Council.