€1.1m deal over cloning technology rights
The intellectual property rights to cloning technology that helped spawn Dolly the sheep changed hands today in a £760,000 (€1.1m) deal.
Biotech firm PPL Therapeutics agreed to transfer ownership of the nuclear transfer patents and related know-how from the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh to US-based Exeter Life Sciences.
PPL said the technology had been used to create cloned sheep but had not been used in the development of its products.
Dolly – the world’s first cloned mammal – died on Valentine’s Day from progressive lung disease after six years as a scientific sensation.
Her relatively early death has helped fuel the debate about the ethics of cloning research and the long-term health of clones.
In a statement to the London market today, PPL said it expected to record a £760,000 (€1.1m) gain on the sale of the technology, which did not have a book value in its accounts.
PPL has kept ownership of the transgenic technology that it used in developing drugs such as AAT – a treatment for genetic lung conditions using proteins drawn from genetically-modified sheep.
Development of the product stalled earlier this year after German partner Bayer decided not to carry out clinical trials and marketing of the drug because it did not see a viable commercial future for it.
Exeter Life Sciences is among a number of US firms awaiting a policy decision from the US Food and Drug Administration on whether milk and meat products from cloned cattle, pigs and goats are safe for consumers to eat.
The outcome of the FDA review is expected next year.
