On Monday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said that the first person to invent the CRISPR-Cas9 technology for their use in the animal cell was the Broad Institute, siding against the two Nobel Laureates. The Monday ruling on the long-running dispute jeopardizes licensing agreements of a few biotech companies.
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As per Bloomberg News, the ruling on Monday determined that the Nobel winners Emmanuelle Charpentier from the University of Vienna and Jennifer Doudna from the University of California at Berkeley had failed to provide evidence that the two were the first to use in animal cells, their gene-editing technology.
The patent battle went on for years. The University of Vienna and the University of California, Berkley had contended that their scientists were the first to find a solution to guide Crispr-Cas9 to specific locations on the genome. The broad Institute maintained that their scientists first proved that their technology worked in animals, humans, and plants.
Several biotechnology companies, including Crispr Therapeutics AG and Intellia Therapeutics Inc., had licensed the Crispr-Cas9 technology from the University of Vienna, also known as CVC and UC Berkeley.
According to Jacob Sherkow, a law professor at the University of Illinois, the ruling invalidates the current patents held by these biotech companies. Now they need to take the technology license fresh from Broad Institute.
The Broad Institute is a research group from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They cannot sue any biotech company until their drug is approved. The decisions on Monday cast a shadow over those companies that develop Crispr medicines with CVC licenses. However, CVC can appeal against the ruling.
An Intellia spokesperson said that the ruling did not affect their ongoing R&D programs plans, and Crisper Therapeutics also noted that the decision did not affect them, and their programs will continue.
Jennifer Doudna did not respond to the request for comment. Editas Medicine Inc., an exclusive agreement with Broad Institute, applauded the decision. Editas shares rose by 17% in late trading on Monday.
Intellia shares fell by 9.2% on the day in which it shared data on how to treat deadly liver diseases from a study using Crispr effectively. On the other side, Crisper Therapeutics fell by 1.4%.
Biotech companies have started pursuing other gene-editing technologies like enzymes and other techniques such as base editing.
