Cellectis,  a leader of engineered CART cell therapies, and Thermo Fisher Scientific have entered into a series of agreements covering the uses of TAL nucleases under the brand name Talen.

Pursuant to these agreements, Thermo Fisher is granted a worldwide license under Cellectis’ rights to the TAL nucleases outside the therapeutic field, with exclusive rights to grant sublicenses in research and development, bioproduction and certain applied markets. Thermo Fisher currently markets Talen for these applications under its Life Technologies brand.

Cellectis is granted a worldwide license under Thermo Fisher’s rights to TAL nucleases in the research and development field for internal and collaborative research, for commercialization of TAL gene editing for Cellectis bioresearch’s products and services, and in the plant biotechnology field for Cellectis plant sciences’ in-house and collaborative research and development. Finally, Cellectis is granted a worldwide license for therapeutic research and development, including rights to grant sublicenses for therapeutic uses in the fields of T cells and Natural Killer cells.

Dr. André Choulika, chairman and chief executive officer of Cellectis stated: “We are very pleased to enter into these agreements that strengthen Cellectis’ position in the uses of Talen gene editing in Cellectis’ core businesses, and solidifies our position as a leader in the field of engineered CART Chimeric Antigen Receptors therapeutics. Talen is the state-of-the-art for gene editing and provides exceptional precision, safety, efficacy and ease of use. TAL nucleases have many applications in genome engineering and their efficacy and specificity make them the world’s best gene editing technology for therapeutic applications. Cellectis founded the field of gene editing 14 years ago and is now primarily focused on adoptive immunotherapy using Talen-engineered T cells combined with (CARs).”

“The agreements between Thermo Fisher and Cellectis create a powerful intellectual property portfolio comprised not only of the foundational work conducted at the University of Minnesota and Martin-Luther-Universitat Halle-Wittenberg, but also additional intellectual property controlled by each party,” said Helge Bastian, general manager and vice president of synthetic biology at Thermo Fisher Scientific. “The ability of TAL effectors to bind to DNA with unprecedented precision and reliability makes this technology invaluable to researchers looking to edit genomes and control gene activity. The current alliance clarifies the path for the use of Talen gene editing in research and applied markets, and represents a major milestone in Thermo Fisher’s strategy to build a comprehensive gene editing technology platform.”

Commercial terms of the agreements were not disclosed.

The Two Blades Foundation, a US-based charitable organization, has exclusive rights to the intellectual property covering the foundational work on TAL effectors performed at Martin-Luther-Universitat Halle-Wittenberg for commercial applications in plants and is committed to broadly licensing its rights.

Cellectis is a biopharmaceutical company focused on oncology. The company’s mission is to develop a novel generation of therapy based on engineered T-cells to treat cancer.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with revenues of $17 billion and 50,000 employees in 50 countries.