Merck and Broad Institute Establish CRISPR Licensing Framework to Encourage Innovation

Darmstadt, Germany, July 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A global leading technology companyMerck(Merck) with the MIT-Harvard Broad Institute (Broad Institute ofMITand Harvard, located in Boston, Massachusetts) today announced an agreement to provide non-exclusive licenses for intellectual property (IP) related to CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) gene-editing technology. Each party will independently control the use of this IP in commercial research and product development.

Udit Batra, Member of the Executive Board of Merck KGaA and CEO of the Life Science business sector,Udit Batra) stated: “We will work together with the Broad Institute to simplify the licensing of CRISPR technology, thereby enabling its widespread use in global research and discovery. Upon reaching an agreement, we will help our customers achieve greater success in their research efforts and accelerate drug development for diseases that were previously untreatable.”

The Broad Institute and Merck KGaA are pursuing a common goal: enabling all entities to utilize this technology and the broader suite of CRISPR tools. To facilitate scientists’ access to and use of this technology, the Broad Institute will license the combined CRISPR intellectual property (IP) portfolios of Merck KGaA and the Institute to potential licensees for internal research as well as for commercial research tools and kits. Under this agreement, companies employing CRISPR technology in their R&D activities can license both IP portfolios through the Broad Institute. This framework is designed to encourage the participation of other major patent holders in the future, either through this framework or via third-party patent pools or collaborations, thereby ensuring more convenient access to non-exclusive rights for using CRISPR technology in relevant fields.

Isi Rosen, Chief Business Officer of the Broad Institute (Issi Rozen) stated, “We believe that the primary holders of CRISPR patents should join forces to make this technology more accessible to a broader audience. The conclusion of this agreement once again demonstrates that collaboration can maximize the openness and facilitate the convenient use of these important research tools. The Broad Institute has already licensed CRISPR technology on a non-exclusive basis for all application areas, except for human therapeutics. We are actively working to ensure that more people can access critical CRISPR intellectual property in the simplest manner possible.”

The Broad Institute and Merck jointly developed a framework. This framework continues to engage collaborators, including Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the New York Genome Center, New York University, Rockefeller University, and the University of Iowa Research Foundation (University of IowaResearch Foundation), the University of Tokyo, and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, among others, provide non-exclusive usage rights controlled by the Broad Institute with jointly owned intellectual property (IP); as well as providing non-exclusive usage rights to Merck’s IP, while imposing certain restrictions on the use of Merck’s IP in the creation of rodent models.

This licensing framework has the following characteristics:

The Broad Institute and Merck have each established guidelines to support genome editing research in compliance with ethical and legal requirements. The Broad Institute provides a brief overview on its website of “Institutional Policies for IP Licensing”. Merck has established an independent external bioethicsConsultantThe committee primarily provides guidance for research involving its business activities, including the study or use of genome editing; furthermore, it has clarified the use of such technologies in consideration of scientific and societal issues.Scope, providing relevant information on how to use this technology to research and apply promising therapeutic approaches.

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