Knobbe Martens Partner Eric Furman Secures Crucial Patent, Contributing to Multi-Million-Dollar Licensing Deal

Knobbe Martens partner Eric Furman, Ph.D., J.D. successfully obtained a U.S. patent that played an important role in securing a multi-million-dollar collaboration and licensing agreement for the firm’s client CombiGene AB with Spark Therapeutics Inc., a member of the Roche Group, the world’s third-largest pharmaceutical company.

The agreement, potentially worth $328.5 million and announced October 12, 2021, is for CombiGene’s CG01 project, an investigational gene therapy to treat epilepsy. Furman obtained U.S. Pat. No.: 11,072,804, which protects the therapy in the United States, on July 27, 2021.

“This collaboration will provide an elegant solution for people suffering from types of epilepsy that are unresponsive to drugs,” said Furman, whose practice includes patent prosecution on gene and cell therapies, many of which benefit children. “Without patent protection, many therapies that save lives or improve quality of life would never make it to market. I’m delighted to be able to help CombiGene move its ground-breaking epilepsy therapy forward so that patients can benefit from this much-needed therapy.”

CombiGene’s CG01 project utilizes a unique gene therapy approach targeted to treat a large global population of patients who have drug-resistant focal epilepsy. Spark Therapeutics will develop, manufacture and commercialize CG01, while CombiGene will continue to administer elements of the preclinical program in collaboration with Spark Therapeutics.