EMBL spin-out seals licensing deal with Daiichi

Licensing

Gene Bridges GmbH, a specialist in a new technique for DNA engineering known as recombineering, has announced that they have signed a commercial license with Japanese pharma company Daiichi Sankyo of Tokyo. The license is for the use of Gene Bridges’ Red/ET recombination technology.

The Red/ET recombination technology is a method of generating targeting vectors or modifying E. coli chromosomes. Gary Stevens, CEO of Gene Bridges, said, “Recombineering is becoming the technology of choice in DNA engineering and with the help of Daiichi Sankyo we expect to gain further acceptance of Red/ET in industry and academia worldwide.”

DNA engineering, or recombineering, with Red/ET allows cloning, subcloning, and modification of DNA at any chosen position. It also permits precise engineering of DNA molecules of any size, including very large ones such as BACs or the E.coli chromosome. Recombineering DNA using Red/ET has a number of advantages over conventional methods.

Gene Bridges was founded in 2000 as a spin-out from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. The company is commercialising its recombineering technology through services, commercial licenses and supplying kits from its facilities in Heidelberg.