Merck KGaA today announced the European Patent Office (EPO) has issued a “Notice of Intention to Grant” for Merck’s patent application covering the company’s CRISPR technology used in a genomic integration method for eukaryotic cells.
The patent will provide MilliporeSigma’s CRISPR genomic integration technology with broad protection, further strengthening the company’s patent portfolio. A related patent was approved in Australia in June 2017. MilliporeSigma anticipates favorable outcomes in other countries as well, because many patent offices worldwide consider the status of related European cases to be highly relevant to the decision to grant patents.
This patent application is one of MilliporeSigma’s multiple CRISPR patent filings since 2012. In May 2017, MilliporeSigma introduced an alternative CRISPR genome-editing method called proxy-CRISPR. Unlike other systems, the proxy-CRISPR technique allows cutting of previously unreachable cell locations, making CRISPR more efficient, flexible and specific—giving researchers more experimental options.
This comes hours after the official publication of the results from the first embryo editing experiment in the US, headed by Shoukhrat Mitalipov at Oregon Health & Science University. His research group successfully replaced a gene that causes heart disease with a healthy one not only efficiently but also accurately, though the edited DNA wasn’t taken up by a single embryo in the experiment.
As Richard Hynes
, Professor of Cancer Research at MIT said, “We’ve always said in the past gene editing shouldn’t be done, mostly because it couldn’t be done safely. That’s still true, but now it looks like it’s going to be done safely soon… [It’s] a big breakthrough.” Merck KGaA may lead the charge on this side of the Atlantic.“This is a significant and exciting decision by the EPO, and we view this announcement as recognition of MilliporeSigma’s important contributions to the genome-editing field,” said Udit Batra, CEO, MilliporeSigma. “This patent provides protection for our CRISPR technology, which will give scientists the ability to advance treatment options for the toughest medical challenges we face today.”
With MilliporeSigma’s CRISPR genomic integration technology, scientists can replace a disease-associated mutation with a beneficial or functional sequence—a method important for creation of disease models and gene therapy. Scientists can also use the method to insert transgenes to enable basic research, using the technology to label endogenous proteins for visual tracking within cells, for example.
Looking at the arena, there are a horde of companies has been rushing into the CRISPR patent space, albeit for a broad range of comparatively narrow uses. Cellectis, for instance, just secured one for its CAR-T efforts. The battle for the original CRISPR patent is ongoing, though the EPO unsurprisingly ruled in favor of Emmanuelle Charpentier earlier this year after its American counterpart sided with Feng Zhang of The Broad Institute.
