Editas takes licence to CRISPR technology amid patent battle

Editas Medicine, a US genome-editing company, has taken a licence to intellectual property relating to CRISPR technologies for human therapeutics, amid a continuing CRISPR patent battle.

In early December, LSIPR reported that The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard appeared against the University of California, Berkeley,  joined by the University of Vienna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, in a patent interference proceeding.

The parties appeared in front of three judges at the USPTO’s headquarters in Virginia, to determine which party has priority for patents related to the gene-editing technology.

Yesterday, December 19, Editas announced that the licensing agreements include IP owned by the Broad Institute and other universities for the CRISPR genome-editing system known as Cpf1, advanced forms of Cas9, and additional Cas9-based genome-editing technologies.

Katrine Bosley, president and CEO of Editas Medicine, said: “We are delighted to expand our global CRISPR genome-editing leadership and to build on the ground-breaking work of these important academic institutions to develop both the new genome-editing system Cpf1 and advanced forms of Cas9.”

She explained that with the addition of the advancements, Editas can “further develop the strongest and most differentiated platform in the fast-moving field of CRISPR”.

Editas Medicine will make total upfront cash payments of $6.25 million and issue a promissory note totalling $10 million that can be settled in stock or cash over a predefined period.