Invitrogen licenses stem-cell intellectual property from Geron

By Elaine Rigoli

Tampa, Fla., June 29 - Invitrogen Corp. and Geron Corp. announced that Invitrogen has licensed Geron's intellectual property related to the growth of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs).

The agreement provides Invitrogen with a non-exclusive license under Geron's patents to develop, manufacture and sell media, additives and reagents for use by hESC researchers subject to certain commercial use restrictions.

In addition, the agreement enables Invitrogen to provide research-use-only sublicenses for the products to its customers, according to a news release.

Geron will receive license payments and royalties on products developed under the agreement. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The license granted to Invitrogen includes rights under Geron's patents covering the growth of hESCs in the absence of feeder cells, as well as additional patents covering specific media formulations for such feeder-free growth.

Conventionally, undifferentiated hESCs have been grown in direct contact with mouse feeder cells or in media conditioned by such feeder cells. Geron scientists have developed techniques for growing hESCs in defined conditions without the use of feeder cells.

The use of fully defined, feeder-free culture methods may increase scalability and reproducibility of hESC culture and may reduce the risk of contamination of the hESC populations by infectious agents from the feeder cells or other animal-sourced culture components.

Such methods are likely to be required for commercial manufacture of hESCs for producing human cell therapeutics, the release said.

Invitrogen, based in Carlsbad, Calif., provides products and services that support academic and government research institutions and pharmaceutical and biotech companies

Geron is a Menlo Park, Calif.-based biopharmaceutical company that is developing therapeutic products for the treatment of cancer and degenerative diseases.

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