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9 January 2019Biotechnology

Locus licenses CRISPR tech to Janssen in potential $818m deal

US-based Locus Biosciences has announced it will license its CRISPR-Cas3 technology to Janssen, a subsidiary of American pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson, in a deal worth a potential $818 million.

The exclusive licensing agreement was announced in a press release issued Thursday, January 3.

Under the terms of the deal, Locus will receive an initial upfront payment of $20 million, and is eligible to receive up to $798 million in royalties and commercial milestone payments.

CRISPR-Cas3 is a gene-editing technology that can be used to promote bacterial cell death.

The agreement will see Janssen develop and commercialise Locus’ CRISPR-Cas3 based “crPhage” platform to produce bacteriophage therapies. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria.

Janssen will use the technology to develop products that target two bacterial pathogens in order to treat infections of the respiratory tract and other organ systems. According to the press release, Locus’ DNA-shredding technology “precisely and selectively removes unwanted bacteria from the human body”.

Paul Garofolo, CEO of Locus, said that the company’s platform was “uniquely positioned to selectively eradicate pathogenic bacteria of choice while preserving an otherwise healthy microbiome in patients”.

“This collaboration with Janssen will enable us to further develop products on the platform to help patients in need around the world,” Garofolo added.

Timo Minssen, director and founder of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law at the University of Copenhagen, told LSIPR that the deal was an “extremely interesting” application of CRISPR technology in tackling human maladies, such as potentially deadly lung infections caused by multi-resistant bacteria and/or viruses.

Minssen added: “Combining phage therapies and CRISPR-Cas3 technology seems to offer some very interesting avenues for R&D in medical applications, and in particular in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.”

There remain IP challenges which could potentially deter companies from investing in the technology, Minssen noted. These largely relate to patent eligibility and whether these technologies would constitute an “inventive concept”, stemming from the US Supreme Court’s 2012 Mayo v Prometheus and 2013 AMP v Myriad decisions.

These rulings affirmed that laws of nature themselves are patent-ineligible, but “inventive” applications of natural processes may be patented.

“These cases will also directly affect the patent-eligibility of isolated naturally occurring viruses, such as phages, and the processes in which these are used,” Minssen said.

Daniel Lim, partner at Kirkland & Ellis, told LSIPR that the deal was another reminder that CRISPR/Cas9 is “not the be all and end all” in the CRISPR licensing landscape. Lim noted that the “uncertainty of the Cas9 patent position” may encourage investment in alternative Cas proteins.

Nonetheless, “Cas9 remains the most widely used, best characterised and most commonly licensed Cas protein to date, and I expect it will take quite some time and/or a significant technical advantage for a newcomer to usurp that position of dominance,” Lim said.

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14 December 2018   ERS Genomics has signed a deal with Swiss company Lonza Pharma & Biotech to provide access to CRISPR/Cas9 technology.

More on this story

Biotechnology
14 December 2018   ERS Genomics has signed a deal with Swiss company Lonza Pharma & Biotech to provide access to CRISPR/Cas9 technology.