NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – ERS Genomics announced today that it has agreed to license CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to Knudra Transgenics, a firm that engineers model organisms for biological research.
Under the terms of the worldwide license, Salt Lake City-based Knudra has obtained the rights to edit the genomes of the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans and the zebrafish Danio rerio. Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
"Knudra is a great example of how a smaller company, dedicated to building platforms for medical discovery, can benefit from use of this exciting new technology," ERS CEO Eric Rhodes said in a statement.
Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology co-founded the privately-held, Dublin-based ERS Genomics in 2014 to commercialize patent rights she holds as an inventor on a CRISPR patent application. The firm recently licensed CRISPR/Cas9 technology to Evolva for industrial applications.