Cepheid expands patent license to include HIV, hepatitis C

By Elaine Rigoli

Tampa, Fla., June 29 - Cepheid Inc. has amended of its patent license agreement with Applera Corp. relating to real-time thermal cycler instruments.

Under the amendment, Cepheid's SmartCycler and GeneXpert real-time polymerase chain reaction thermal cyclers are licensed real-time thermal cyclers under Applera's U.S. Patent No. 6,814,934, European Patent No. EP 0 872 562 and Japanese Patent No. JP 3136129, as well as patents pending for all fields including human in-vitro diagnostics.

This amendment expands the field of the license to now include the detection, characterization and monitoring of HIV and hepatitis C infections.

"This is an important expansion of the field for Cepheid in that it provides us with the rights to potentially further exploit the benefits our instrument systems provide to significant existing viral markets. Although further licenses may be required to introduce clinical tests for quantitative detection of HIV and hepatitis C, this first step removes a significant impediment to the development of those tests," chief executive officer John Bishop said in a news release.

Cepheid, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is a molecular diagnostics company.

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