NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – DuPont Pioneer has signed an agreement to acquire the exclusive rights to ERS Genomics' portfolio of CRISPR-Cas genome-editing technologies for all plant and agricultural applications, the companies announced today.
Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed.
ERS was founded to provide broad access to the intellectual property, which is based on the research of Emmanuelle Charpentier from the Hannover Medical School in Germany and Umea University in Sweden. Over the past couple of years, the firm has provided licenses to its IP to various biomedical firms including Taconic Bioscience, Horizon Discovery, and Evolva.
"This licensing agreement with ERS is a piece of DuPont Pioneer's strategy to position our business as a leader in the application of CRISPR-Cas in agriculture," Neal Gutterson, vice president of R&D at DuPont Pioneer, said in a statement. "Our intention is to collaborate with public and private entities globally to apply CRISPR-Cas to a wide set of crops and maximize the value of this important technology for the greater good."
DuPont Pioneer already holds licenses to CRISPR technology from Vilnius University and Caribou Biosciences.