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[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 175 (Tuesday, September 12, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 42823-42824]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-19313]

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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

National Institutes of Health

Government-Owned Inventions; Availability for Licensing

AGENCY: National Institutes of Health, HHS.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: Government owned intellectual property covering imaging agents 
with improved renal clearance available for licensing and 
commercialization.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Licensing information and copies of 
the patent applications listed below may be obtained by emailing the 
indicated licensing contact at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood, 
Office of Technology Transfer and Development Office of Technology 
Transfer, 31 Center Drive, Room 4A29, MSC2479, Bethesda, MD 20892-2479; 
telephone: 301-402-5579. A signed Confidential Disclosure Agreement may 
be required to receive copies of the patent applications.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The inventions listed below are owned by an 
agency of the U.S. Government and are available for licensing in the 
U.S. in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 209 and 37 CFR part 404 to achieve 
expeditious commercialization of results of federally-funded research 
and development. Foreign patent applications are filed on selected 
inventions to extend market coverage for companies and may also be 
available for licensing. A description of the technology available for 
licensing follows.

Evans Blue Dye Derivatives for Serum Albumin Labeling

     Description of Technology: The invention is an imaging agent and 
method of its use for imaging blood pools and the lymphatic system. The 
imaging agent binds with high affinity to serum albumin, the most 
abundant serum protein, and can be tagged with several isotopes making 
it suitable for magnetic resonance imaging or positron emission 
tomographic imaging. To date, only very few blood-pool tracers have 
been introduced for positron emission tomography. The existing ones 
have short half-lives (20.4 min for \11\C and 2.05 min for \15\O) and 
thus can only be used in centers with an in-house cyclotron. Compared 
with these radiometals, \18\F has the advantages of being a pure 
position emitter with ideal half-life. It is the dominant radioisotope 
used for PET imaging for both clinical applications and preclinical 
investigations. Evans blue dye has been an important tool in many 
physiological and clinical investigations because of its

[[Page 42824]]

high affinity for plasma albumin and has been used for a long time in 
clinical practice for determination of patient plasma volume. The 
current imaging agent is a truncated form of EB [NEB]) and has the 
ability to bind albumin with high affinity. The agent is also 
conjugated to NOTA to enable in vivo labeling with \18\F labeling by 
the formation of \18\F-aluminum fluoride complex. The NOTA also 
facilitates radiometal labeling of NEB with either \68\Ga or \64\Cu. 
The resulting imaging agent does not affect the in vivo behavior of 
serum albumin such as circulation, extra-vascularization, and turn-
over; thus the imaging results will reflect the distribution and 
metabolism of serum albumin accurately.
    Potential Commercial Applications:
     Blood pool imaging.
     Lymphatic system imaging.
    Development Stage:
     In vivo data available.
    Inventors: Xiaoyuan Chen, Lixin Lang, Gang Niu (all of NIBIB).
    Intellectual Property: HHS Reference No. E-099-2015/0-US-01 and/0-
US-02.
     U.S. Patent Applications 14/675,364 filed March 31, 2015 
and 15/587,948 filed May 5, 2017.
    Licensing Contact: Michael Shmilovich, Esq, CLP; 301-435-5019; 
[email protected].
    Collaborative Research Opportunity: The National Institute of 
Environmental Health Sciences seeks statements of capability or 
interest from parties interested in collaborative research to further 
develop and evaluate, please contact Cecilia Pazman, Office of 
Technology Transfer, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, 
[email protected], 301-594-4273.

    Dated: September 7, 2017.
Michael Shmilovich,
Senior Licensing and Patenting Manager, National Heart, Lung, and Blood 
Institute, Office of Technology Transfer and Development.
[FR Doc. 2017-19313 Filed 9-11-17; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4140-01-P
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