Claims for Patent: 9,845,504

Summary for Patent: 9,845,504

Title:	Method for treating rheumatoid arthritis with agents that recognize the B-lymphocyte CD20 membrane receptor
Abstract:	An in vitro method for the prognosis or prediction of response in patients with rheumatoid arthritis to treatment with agents recognising the B-lymphocyte CD20 membrane receptor. The method of the invention comprises an assay in a blood sample from these patients and measuring, before starting the treatment, the transcriptional expression level (mRNA) of at least one of the genes selected from the group: ARG1, CPD, TRAF1, C1QA, LRRN3, LRRN3, HLA-DQA1, NLK, TLR4, LOC89944, TOM1L1, BACH, NCALD, EIF2C2, NFIC, PCDHB7, FLJ32770, ARID3A, C14ORF9, CSNK1E, BCAS1, TEAD2, C6orf145 and SNTA1; and the comparison of this expression level to the expression values previously obtained in patients who responded and who did not respond to the treatment.
Inventor(s):	Julia Cano; Antonio (Barcelona, ES), Marsal Barril; Sara (Barcelona, ES)
Assignee:	Fundacio Institut de Recerca de L\'Hospital Universitari Vall D\'Hebron (Barcelona, ES)
Application Number:	13/380,665
Patent Claims:	1. A method for the prognosis and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in a patient, the method comprising: (a) obtaining a blood cell sample from a human patient; (b) detecting an expression level of the ARG1 gene and an expression level of the TRAF1 gene in the blood cell sample; (c) predicting that the patient will respond to treatment with rituximab when the expression level of the ARG1 gene is lower than the expression level of the TRAF1 gene; and (d) administering an effective amount of rituximab to the patient. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the expression levels of the ARG1 gene and the TRAF1 gene are detected by quantitation of mRNA levels in the blood cell sample. 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the expression levels of the ARG1 gene and the TRAF1 gene are detected by: reverse transcribing mRNA from the ARG1 gene and the TRAF1 gene; generating complementary DNA (cDNA) associated with the ARG1 gene and the TRAF1 gene from the mRNA; and amplifying the cDNA associated with the ARG1 gene and the TRAF1 gene to detect the expression levels of the ARG1 gene and the TRAF1 gene.

Details for Patent 9,845,504

Applicant	Tradename	Biologic Ingredient	Dosage Form	BLA	Approval Date	Patent No.	Expiredate
Genentech, Inc.	RITUXAN	rituximab	Injection	103705	11/26/1997		2030-06-09
Genentech, Inc.	RITUXAN HYCELA	rituximab and hyaluronidase human	Injection	761064	06/22/2017		2030-06-09