Alliance to Develop Rodent Models

Mer­ck a sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny and leader in genome edit­ing, announced a strate­gic alliance in the Crispr/Cas9 rodent mod­el mar­ket with France-based biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny genOway.

“We are com­mit­ted to mak­ing our patent­ed Crispr tech­nol­o­gy broad­ly avail­able to the glob­al research and dis­cov­ery com­mu­ni­ty. Togeth­er with genOway, we will get the best research mod­els out to the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and biotech indus­tries as well as aca­d­e­m­ic lab­o­ra­to­ries quick­ly, so we can help accel­er­ate their research, short­en drug devel­op­ment time­lines and treat pre­vi­ous­ly untreat­able dis­eases in faster and more tar­get­ed ways. We will con­tin­ue to play an active role, respon­si­bly and eth­i­cal­ly, in ensur­ing that sci­en­tists have access to the lat­est Crispr technologies.”
Udit Batra, mem­ber of the Mer­ck Exec­u­tive Board and CEO, Life Science

Through an exclu­sive world­wide license of Merck’s foun­da­tion­al Crispr inte­gra­tion patents, genOway will devel­op new mod­els and solu­tions allow­ing non-prof­it and for-prof­it sci­en­tists to use Crispr/Cas9 tech­nol­o­gy. Under the agree­ment, genOway will also devel­op a net­work of sub­li­censees in both the mod­el cre­ation and dis­tri­b­u­tion busi­ness­es and pre­clin­i­cal ser­vices for all poten­tial appli­ca­tions world­wide, with a strong focus in the Unit­ed States, Asia and Europe. Finan­cial details were not disclosed.
Both Mer­ck and genOway have iden­ti­fied research fields where they can com­bine their respec­tive tech­nolo­gies and exper­tise to devel­op and val­i­date new Crispr/­Cas9-relat­ed prod­ucts and solu­tions. Merck’s patent­ed Crispr inte­gra­tion tech­nol­o­gy is a strong entry point through which inno­va­tion can be devel­oped and launched.
At Mer­ck, excel­lence and exper­tise in ani­mal care, use and wel­fare are of the high­est pri­or­i­ty. In line with its mis­sion to devel­op inno­v­a­tive med­i­cines and chem­i­cals based on sci­en­tif­ic excel­lence and the estab­lished eth­i­cal stan­dards, Mer­ck is com­mit­ted to con­duct­ing ani­mal research activ­i­ties only if no oth­er method or test­ing is avail­able for obtain­ing the result or prod­uct sought, not entail­ing the use of a live animal.
Crispr tech­nol­o­gy is a core com­pe­ten­cy for Mer­ck, which has 14 years’ expe­ri­ence with genome edit­ing, span­ning from dis­cov­ery to man­u­fac­tur­ing. Mer­ck rec­og­nizes that genome edit­ing has result­ed in major advance­ments in bio­log­i­cal research and med­i­cine.  At the same time, the grow­ing poten­tial of genome-edit­ing tech­nolo­gies has opened sci­en­tif­ic, legal and soci­etal con­cerns. As both a user and sup­pli­er of genome-edit­ing tech­nol­o­gy, Mer­ck sup­ports research with genome edit­ing under care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion of eth­i­cal and legal stan­dards. Mer­ck has estab­lished an inde­pen­dent, exter­nal Bioethics Advi­so­ry Pan­el to pro­vide guid­ance for research in which its busi­ness­es are involved, includ­ing research on or using genome edit­ing, and has devel­oped, defined and trans­par­ent­ly pub­lished a clear oper­a­tional posi­tion tak­ing into account sci­en­tif­ic and soci­etal issues to inform promis­ing ther­a­peu­tic approach­es for use in research and applications.