NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – ERS Genomics said today that it has licensed its CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing patents to the NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute at the University of Tübingen and its affiliate NMI TT Pharmaservices.
Under the terms of the non-exclusive licensing deal, NMI and NMI TT will gain access to the ERS patents in order to use them to expand their own custom cell-based research service offerings. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
ERS holds rights to foundational CRISPR-Cas9 intellectual property from Emmanuelle Charpentier. NMI and its contract research organization arm NMI TT develop custom target overexpressing and knockout cell models for the identification and validation of drug targets as well as preclinical testing of drug candidates.
ERS signed multiple licensing agreements with various companies for its technology in 2017, including with Oxford Genetics and Taconic Biosciences in May, with DuPont Pioneer in June, and with Cellecta in November. In December, ERS signed a patent licensing agreement with Charles River Laboratories, and ERS and Horizon Discovery Group announced that they had agreed to expand their pre-existing, non-exclusive, worldwide license agreement covering Horizon's use of ERS' CRISPR technology.