Oxford, UK: 7 January 2008: Oxford BioMedica (LSE: OXB), a leading gene therapy company, announced today that it has signed a license agreement with the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the University of Massachusetts Medical School that grants the Company rights to key RNA interference (RNAi) technology invented by Nobel Prize-winning scientists Andrew Z. Fire, PhD, and Craig C. Mello, PhD. The rights granted are exclusive for RNAi gene silencing using lentiviral vector technology for human gene therapy applications, including Oxford BioMedica’s proprietary LentiVector system. Under the terms of the license agreement Oxford BioMedica will pay an upfront payment, milestone payments and royalties on sales. These rights will run concurrently with the rights of the existing licensees of the RNAi technology. Further details were not disclosed.
