European Patent Office approves Merck's CRISPR patent application

Merck (Merck) announced on the 3rd, the European Patent Office (European Patent Office) has issued a Merck patent application "notice of intention to approve". The application covers the company's CRISPR technology for eukaryotic genome integration methods. This will be Merck's second patent for CRISPR technology after it was granted by the Australian Patent Office on June 15.

Merck's patent application covers the use of CRISPR to integrate external DNA sequences into the chromosomes of eukaryotic cells. This patent will provide additional protection for Merck's CRISPR genome integration technology, further strengthening the company's patent portfolio.

In addition to Australia, where it has already been granted, and Europe, where it will soon be granted, Merck expects to achieve positive results in other countries, such as Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, India, Israel, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and the United States, as many patent offices around the world consider their European case reviews when considering whether to grant a patent. The prescient Merck had filed patent applications in all of these places earlier.

Udit Batra, member of Merck's Executive Committee and CEO of Life Science, said: "This is an important and exciting decision by the European Patent Office and we see this announcement as recognition of Merck's important contribution to the field of genome editing. This patent will provide protection for our CRISPR technology, which will allow scientists to improve treatment options for the most difficult medical challenges we face today."

With Merck's genomic integration technology, scientists can replace disease-related mutations with beneficial functional sequences, which is an important way to model disease and derive gene therapies. Scientists can also use this method to insert transgenes to enable basic research. For example, this technology is used to label endogenous proteins for visual tracking within genes.

Merck started working on CRISPR early on, but it wasn't until May 2017 that Merck announced it had developed an alternative CRISPR gene editing method called proxy-CRISPR. Unlike other systems, proxy-CRISPR technology enables cutting of previously inaccessible areas of cells, making CRISPR more efficient, flexible, and characteristic, giving researchers more experimental options. To this end, Merck filed a patent application for its proxy-CRISPR technology.

Merck has been in the field of genome editing for 14 years and was the first company to provide customized biomolecules for genome editing worldwide, TargeTronTM RNA-guided type II introns and CompoZrTM zinc finger nucleases, driving the adoption of these technologies in the global research community. In collaboration with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Merck is also the first company to create a CRISPR sequence library covering the entire human genome, allowing researchers to explore more questions about disease, thereby accelerating the process of curing disease. The CRISPR sequence library is an important advance in the field of genome editing and reinforces the company's leadership position.

In addition to conducting basic genome editing research, the company supports the development of gene and cell-based therapies and the production of viral vectors. In 2016, Merck launched a plan to promote research on new treatments, including genome editing and gene drug manufacturing, through a dedicated team and stronger resources.

News source:http://news.bioon.com/article/6707855.html

This news was re-edited and reorganized by the Huaxun team and added analytical comments.