NEW YORK – ERS Genomics said on Tuesday that it has granted biotechnology company G+FLAS Life Sciences of South Korea a non-exclusive license to its CRISPR-Cas9 patent portfolio, which G+FLAS said it will use to provide services and tools as well as to develop drugs and produce genome edited plants.
Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Dublin-based ERS Genomics was founded to provide access to CRISPR-Cas9 intellectual property held by Emmanuelle Charpentier. The IP is shared between her, Jennifer Doudna and the University of California, and the University of Vienna and is separate from genome editing patents held by the Broad Institute.
G+FLAS, based in Seoul, supports research organizations by providing CRISPR-related biological research services, tools, and reagents. Its products include CRISPR Plus genome editing enzymes that possess enhanced indel efficiency with fewer off-target effects, a novel method of plant genome engineering, and humanized Nicotiana benthamiana plants whose protein glycosyltransferases were deleted to produce glyco-optimized biopharmaceuticals such as monoclonal antibodies.
"We are very excited to sign this licensing agreement with ERS Genomics, to build on the strength of our existing platform and drive our future growth," G+FLAS CEO Sunghwa Choe said in a statement. "Based on our advanced CRISPR Plus research technology and global-standard production process, we will continue to innovate to meet our clients' needs, to make differences in their discovery processes."
Earlier this month, ERS signed a similar licensing deal for its CRISPR-Cas9 patent portfolio with contract research organization ZeClinics, which will use the technology to create single-knockout, double-knockout, and somatic F0 knockout zebrafish variants for use as disease models.