NEW YORK – ERS Genomics said on Tuesday that it has signed a nonexclusive license agreement granting Swiss firm Cytosurge access to its CRISPR-Cas9 patent portfolio. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
Cytosurge develops, manufactures, and distributes single-cell research solutions based on patented technology called FluidFM.
The firm also offers a CRISPR cell line engineering service, FluidFM CellEDIT, that is designed for hard-to-transfect cells and complex genome edits. Edits are made on single cells, and customers receive monoclonal cell lines in fewer than 12 weeks.
"We are pleased to support Cytosurge, an exciting and progressive leader in precision single-cell manipulation, in their ongoing developments with this license agreement," ERS CEO Eric Rhodes said in a statement.
ERS Genomics, based in Dublin, was founded to provide access to CRISPR-Cas9 patents held by Emmanuelle Charpentier. The IP is shared with Jennifer Doudna and the University of California, as well as with the University of Vienna.
The company most recently granted nonexclusive licenses to pharmaceutical developers Sumitomo Pharma of Japan and US-based Cellular Engineering Technologies.
In March, the US Patent and Trademark Office found that patents held by the Broad Institute covering CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology in eukaryotic cells have priority over similar intellectual property owned by the University of California, the University of Vienna, and Charpentier.
Last month, however, the European Patent Office upheld a CRISPR-Cas9 patent held by ERS Genomics.