WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Kylin Therapeutics, Inc., a newly-formed biotechnology company, announced July 5th that it has obtained from Purdue University an exclusive license to an RNA interference (RNAi) delivery technology called “pRNA”.

The license agreement includes more than twelve patent applications covering pRNA. The pRNA technology was invented and developed by Dr. Peixuan Guo when he was a Professor of Molecular Virology and Biomedical Engineering and Faculty Scholar at Purdue University. Dr. Guo served as the director of Purdue’s Nanobiotechnology Interdisciplinary Graduate Program and Director of a NIH Nanomedicine Development Center. Currently, he is an Endowed Professor and Director of the Nanomedicine Bionanotechnology Center at the University of Cincinnati.

The subject of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology, RNAi is widely regarded as the greatest therapeutic discovery in decades. Through the use of small interfering RNA (siRNA), RNAi-based technologies can be used to silence disease-causing genes. However, the potential of RNAi is limited unless certain challenges are overcome. “The therapeutic relevance of siRNA is in jeopardy unless it can be delivered in a targeted fashion.” said Guo. “pRNA solves this problem for RNAi and other RNA-based therapeutics.”

Kylin Therapeutics will employ the combination of RNAi and pRNA to unlock the enormous therapeutic potential of RNAi. Kylin’s lead product is a pRNA-based therapeutic to treat cancer. The compound has shown strong efficacy in a number of in vitro and animal models, causing programmed cell death and suppressing tumor formation in a variety of cancers without causing significant non-specific cytotoxicity. Kylin’s initial plans are to focus on cancer therapy, with follow-on treatments for viral diseases such as AIDS.

“RNAi represents a paradigm shift in the pharmaceutical industry giving clinicians and scientists the ability to selectively silence disease-causing genes. pRNA is the missing link necessary for RNAi to be delivered in a targeted, systemic fashion. This will allow Kylin to realize RNAi’s full therapeutic potential.” said Eric Davis, CEO of Kylin Therapeutics, Inc., a Purdue Research Park company.

IN-vivo Ventures and Golden Pine Ventures helped to form Kylin Therapeutics and provided an undisclosed amount of seed financing to launch the company’s development efforts.

Guo is a founder of the company and serves as chairman of its scientific advisory board.

About IN-vivo Ventures, Inc.

IN-vivo Ventures, Inc., is a company whose mission is to nurture and to create economic value from promising platform technologies emerging from research universities and inventors in Indiana. IN-vivo seeds a new company with professional management, advisors and processes and streamlines the process of licensing and commercializing those technologies.

About Golden Pine Ventures, LLC

Golden Pine Ventures, LLC, was founded in 2004 in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The company’s mission is to aggressively seek out state-of-the-art technologies developed by leading researchers and grow them into substantial businesses.