Broad Institute enters talks for CRISPR licensing pool

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has announced that it has entered talks to create a worldwide licensing pool for CRISPR/Cas9 patents.

In a statement released on Monday, July 10, the Broad said it hoped a patent pool would create a “one-stop shop” for commercial users to license CRISPR patents without needing to navigate a “complex patent and licensing landscape”.

The proposed pool will be coordinated by MPEG LA, an organisation that operates patent pool licensing programmes across institutions and countries.

Currently, commercial groups must apply for licences from multiple institutions. However, some CRISPR patents are available for non-profit organisations.

“We strongly support making CRISPR technology broadly available,” said Issi Rozen, chief business officer of the Broad Institute.

“The Broad Institute already licenses CRISPR/Cas9 non-exclusively for all applications, with the exception of human therapeutics, where we have significantly limited the exclusivity.”

In February, LSIPR reported that the Broad Institute’s patents concerning CRISPR technology did not interfere with patent claims filed by the University of California (UC), Berkeley and the University of Vienna.

UC, Berkeley said at the time that it would proceed based on its assessment of “what best serves and supports the public interest and the greater good”.

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