Icoria annouces notice of allowance on TissueInformatics applicaiton

Biotechnology company Icoria, Inc. announced on September 29 that it has received a Notice of Allowance from the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office for a pending patent application related to the high
throughput measurement of blood vessels in a tissue sample. This recently allowed patent application is a part of the portfolio of issued and pending patents that Icoria purchased in 2004 in the acquisition of TissueInformatics of Pittsburgh. [L.B. Ebert worked on many of these applications.]
The allowed patent application, entitled "Methods for Quantitative Analysis of Blood Vessel Structure," is drawn to cover the methods of geometrical analysis that enable the automated measurement of several features of images of tissue. These methods allow fast, repeatable and accurate analysis of tissue samples. The proof-of-concept work underlying the application involved a cardiovascular device study in an animal model of the
restenosis-like response of blood vessels injured by balloon angioplasty. Possible applications for the technology include the cardiovascular device market.
"Quantitative tissue analysis represents an important advance in
characterizing disease progression and, as in the proof-of-concept work here, potential therapeutic outcomes," said Thomas Colatsky, Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Research. "Our growing portfolio of patents covering methods of quantitative tissue analysis not only supports our internal capabilities in biomarker discovery, but may also represent a potential licensing opportunity for companies requiring new ways of extracting high content biological image data for clinical and preclinical research."
Icoria has four issued U.S. patents and thirteen U.S. and international patent applications in its quantitative tissue analysis portfolio. The company has a total of 70 pending U.S. patent applications, 42 pending international patent applications, and 24 issued U.S. patents.