NEW YORK, March 20 – Pyrosequencing of Uppsala Sweden and Mosaic Technologies said Tuesday they had signed a cross-licensing agreement for access to their complementary DNA sequencing technologies.
Under the terms of the deal, Pyrosequencing will have co-exclusive rights to Mosaic's fluorescent detection technology. In exchange, Mosaic will have access to Pyrosequencing's “sequencing by synthesis” technology to use in combination with its "sequencing on amplified polony array" technology.
"Access to the Mosaic technology provides us with a simple and straight forward method for implementing our Pyrosequencing technology in new miniaturized platforms such as microfluidics and array formats," said Bjorn Ekstrom, chief technology officer at Pyrosequencing. "It also gives Pyrosequencing the ability to develop products with integrated sample preparation, potentially shorter cycle times, and longer sequencing reads, and the opportunity to enter new market segments like expression profiling."
Pyrosequencing, which has developed a sequencing technique comprised of an enzymatic cascade and a chemiluminescent detection system that results in a light flash every time a unique position in the DNA strand is detected, said Mosaic’s technology would enable the company to produce diagnostics. Pyrosequencing’s technology is currently designed to help researchers sequence DNA as well as identify SNPs.
Mosaic noted that rights to Pyrosequencing’s technology would give the company a broader IP base, which would help it to commercialize new products using array-based sequencing technology. Mosaic exploits solid phase chemistry to purify, amplify, and detect DNA.
Mosaic is currently developing five products to improve DNA microarrays and high-throughput sequencing. The company hopes to launch these products during the next three years through corporate alliances.
The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.