Geron and Exeter Life Sciences Form Joint Venture for Licensing Animal Cloning Technologies
MENLO PARK, Calif. & PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 6,
2005--Geron Corporation (Nasdaq:GERN) and Exeter Life Sciences, Inc.
announced today the formation of stART Licensing, Inc., a new company
that will manage and license a broad portfolio of intellectual
property rights related to animal reproductive technologies. This
unique portfolio includes the foundational nuclear transfer cloning
technology that was developed at the Roslin Institute for the cloning
of Dolly the sheep.
Through the creation of the stART Licensing joint venture the
leading intellectual property for animal cloning, including the full
breadth of rights under the Roslin technology, will be combined under
one roof.
Geron is contributing patent rights to stART, including rights to
the Roslin technology and patents to related developments arising from
animal cloning work that Geron funded at the Roslin Institute. Exeter
is contributing rights acquired from PPL Therapeutics, Inc. to use the
Roslin technology for producing proteins in milk of animals, as well
as rights to other cloning technologies, including chromatin transfer,
a technology developed at the University of Massachusetts. Exeter will
provide initial capital for the company's operations, as well as
management services. Geron and Exeter will hold 49.9% and 50.1% stakes
in stART, respectively. In addition, Geron will receive up-front cash
and milestone payments. Geron and Exeter will receive distributions of
profits from stART proportionate to their equity interests.
"We are very pleased to announce the formation of stART with
Exeter as our partner," said David J. Earp, Geron's chief patent
counsel and senior vice president of business development. "Given
Geron's focus on the development of our human oncology and stem cell
products, we made the strategic choice to put our animal cloning
assets into a dedicated joint venture. Exeter was the clear partner of
choice, bringing expertise in animal cloning and experience using the
Roslin technology. In addition, Exeter has acquired exclusive rights
for making proteins in milk using the Roslin technology; these rights
were previously exclusively licensed from Roslin to PPL but will now
be made broadly available through stART."
"We see great potential for animal biotechnology both in human
health and agricultural product applications, and a parallel
opportunity for providing enabling technology rights to companies
developing these products," said Jonathan Thatcher, chief executive
officer of Exeter. "stART will serve as a global clearing house for
rights to these advanced reproductive technologies."
Recent successes by Geron in three patent interferences bring
further clarity to the patent landscape, demonstrating the strength of
the Roslin patent portfolio held by stART. In each case the Board of
Patent Appeals and Interferences of the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office issued final judgments in favor of Geron, invalidating animal
cloning patents held by Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) and Infigen.
ACT has appealed one of the two judgments against it, and the other
may still be appealed.
Dr. Scott Davis, founder and former head of ViaGen, will be the
president of stART. Dr. Davis was chair of the genetics faculty at
Texas A&M University and a professor there for 12 years. Dr. Davis
will oversee stART's intellectual property investment and licensing
strategy.
"stART will focus on generating revenues through an active and
broad licensing program," said Dr. Davis, president of the new joint
venture. "By offering companies and academic institutions access to
enabling rights from the Roslin patent portfolio, coupled with the
most promising cloning improvements, we can enable best practices,
accelerating research and product development in this field."
The technology that stART offers has the potential to impact many
fields of biotechnology product development. For human medicine,
cloning may be used to develop animals that secrete therapeutic
proteins in their milk, that produce humanized antibodies for use as
vaccines or that produce animal tissues modified for
xenotransplantation. In agriculture, cloning can be used to improve
health, quality and consistency of animal herds more quickly than is
possible through conventional breeding.
About Exeter Life Sciences
Exeter Life Sciences, Inc. delivers innovative services that
improve the health of people, enhance the breeding of animals, and
utilize biotechnology to create environmentally-friendly agricultural
products. Through its three subsidiary companies, Kronos Incorporated,
ViaGen, and Arcadia Biosciences, Exeter is regarded as one of the
nation's most advanced scientific advisory companies.
About Geron Corporation
Geron is a biopharmaceutical company developing and
commercializing three groups of products: i) therapeutic products for
oncology that target telomerase; ii) pharmaceuticals that activate
telomerase in tissues impacted by senescence, injury or degenerative
disease; and iii) cell-based therapies derived from its human
embryonic stem cell platform for applications in multiple chronic
diseases.
This news release may contain forward-looking statements made
pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that such
forward-looking statements in this press release regarding potential
applications of Geron's technology constitute forward-looking
statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including, without
limitation, risks inherent in the development and commercialization of
potential products, need for future capital and maintenance of our
intellectual property rights. Actual results may differ materially
from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements.
Additional information on potential factors that could affect our
results and other risks and uncertainties are detailed from time to
time in Geron's periodic reports, including the annual report on Form
10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004.
CONTACT: Geron Corporation
David L. Greenwood, 650-473-7765
or
stART Licensing & Exeter Life Sciences
Suzanne Turner or Brian Duss, 202-466-9633
brian@turnerstrategies.com
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