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Cellular Dynamics Licenses Patents from Life Tech, Sigma-Aldrich

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Cellular Dynamics today said that it has licensed certain genetic engineering patents from Life Technologies and Sigma-Aldrich, which the Madison, Wis.-based firm will use in creating human disease models and isogenic controls.

Specifically, CDI licensed patents covering Life Tech's GeneArt Precision TALs and Sigma-Aldrich's CompoZr zinc finger nuclease technologies. The licensed technologies "facilitate efficient genomic editing by creating double-stranded breaks in DNA at user-specified locations, stimulating the cell's natural repair process and enabling targeted gene insertions, deletions, or modifications," CDI said in a statement.

Financial and other terms of the licensing agreements were not disclosed.

Bob Palay, CEO of CDI, said that the "combination of these nuclease technologies with CDI's iPSC-derived cells creates a new, powerful tool to better understand and target human disease."

The firm markets the MyCell line of disease models for cardiomyopathies and arrhythmias, vision disorders, neurological disorders, and muscular dystrophies, and has plans to expand its offerings to disease models for neurodegenerative disorders and drug-induced liver injury.

The licensing deals come a day after CDI filed for an initial public offering of stock in the US with the aim of raising as much as $57.3 million.

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