aTyr Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:LIFE), a biotherapeutics company engaged in the discovery and development of first-in-class medicines from its proprietary tRNA synthetase platform, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has provided a Notice of Allowance for a patent covering methods for the use of anti-neuropilin-2 (NRP2) antibodies. The patent application No. 16/376,979 titled, "Compositions and methods comprising anti-NRP2 antibodies," covers the use of a series of antibodies targeting NRP2 for differentiated therapeutic applications in the areas of cancer and inflammation.

NRP2 is a cell surface receptor that plays multiple roles in neurodevelopment, maintaining cellular plasticity, cell migration, lymphatic development and regulating inflammatory responses in normal physiology. The blocking antibodies that aTyr has developed target distinct domains of NRP2, including those interacting with semaphorins, VEGF and certain chemokines.

"We are pleased with the USPTO Notice of Allowance for this patent covering compositions and methods comprising anti-NRP2 antibodies, including our investigational new drug (IND) candidate ATYR2810, which is the first patent to be granted to our intellectual property estate for this program," said Sanjay S. Shukla, M.D., M.S., President and Chief Executive Officer of aTyr.

A Notice of Allowance is issued after the USPTO makes the determination that a patent should be granted from an application. A patent from the recently allowed application is expected to be issued in the coming months.

aTyr's global patent estate includes over 220 issued or allowed patents owned or exclusively licensed by aTyr and its Hong Kong subsidiary, Pangu BioPharma Limited, developed over a decade of research and development activities. This patent estate highlights aTyr's unique leadership position in this emerging area of biology. These patents encompassed important new therapeutic modalities which underpin the broad pipeline of novel therapeutics in active development at the company.