Agreement will drive bioscience research by enabling development of novel Dharmacon genome engineering toolsets
CHALFONT ST. GILES, UK and NEW YORK, NY, USA – 4 Dec 2014 – GE Healthcare Life Sciences (NYSE: GE) and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard announced today the signing of a non-exclusive license agreement granting GE Healthcare Life Sciences access to intellectual property held by the Broad Institute relating to the CRISPR-Cas9 gene engineering system for research purposes. The CRISPR-Cas9 system allows scientists to modify gene expression in order to gain insights vital to the understanding of disease.
“This agreement provides a strong foundation for new, differentiated gene editing products which harness the power of the CRISPR-Cas9 system, extending our existing RNAi and gene expression portfolio to encompass the broadest range of gene modulation technologies,” said Michael Deines, General Manager of Dharmacon, part of GE Healthcare Life Sciences.
Issi Rozen, Broad Institute Director of Strategic Alliances, commented: “Consistent with the Broad’s mission to accelerate the understanding and treatment of disease, we are committed to empowering the global research community by making this technology broadly available to scientists for research around the world. Granting a non-exclusive license to GE Healthcare’s Dharmacon will help drive this availability.”
Eric Roman, General Manager of Research & Applied Markets, GE Healthcare Life Sciences added: “In line with the strategy outlined at the time of acquisition in March 2014, this license is a crucial step in our further development of Dharmacon’s added-value tools and technology offerings for the bioscience research community.”
The intellectual property license from the Broad Institute includes the first granted patent for the use of CRISPR technology in eukaryotic cells and is based on work described in Broad Institute core member Dr. Feng Zhang’s 2013 Science paper. In October 2014, GE Healthcare Life Sciences launched Dharmacon Edit-R Gene Engineering System, its CRISPR-Cas9-based platform for creating permanent and heritable gene knockouts in cells in one-to-two weeks versus the previous one-month timescale. The license granted by Broad will enable further platform development by incorporating the patented technologies and the launch of additional, complementary gene editing tools for the scientific community. Dharmacon is a trademark of GE Healthcare companies.
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About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services to meet the demand for increased access, enhanced quality and more affordable healthcare around the world. GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter - great people and technologies taking on tough challenges. From medical imaging, software & IT, patient monitoring and diagnostics to drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and performance improvement solutions, GE Healthcare helps medical professionals deliver great healthcare to their patients. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.
About the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard was launched in 2004 to empower this generation of creative scientists to transform medicine. The Broad Institute seeks to describe all the molecular components of life and their connections; discover the molecular basis of major human diseases; develop effective new approaches to diagnostics and therapeutics; and disseminate discoveries, tools, methods, and data openly to the entire scientific community.
Founded by MIT, Harvard, and its affiliated hospitals, and the visionary Los Angeles philanthropists Eli and Edythe L. Broad, the Broad Institute includes faculty, professional staff and students from throughout the MIT and Harvard biomedical research communities and beyond, with collaborations spanning over a hundred private and public institutions in more than 40 countries worldwide. For further information about the Broad Institute, go to http://www.broadinstitute.org Issued for and on behalf of GE Healthcare Life Sciences by Instinctif Partners.
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