ERS Genomics and Lepton Pharmaceuticals LTD Enter CRISPR/Cas9 License Agreement
License allows Lepton, with their proprietary Castling Technology, to develop and commercialize products and services using CRISPR/Cas9 technology
Dublin, Ireland and Zikhron Ya’akov, Israel, 26 July 2022: ERS Genomics Limited (‘ERS’) is pleased to announce a new license agreement with Lepton Pharmaceuticals LTD (‘Lepton”). This is a non-exclusive licensing agreement granting Lepton access to the ERS CRISPR/Cas9 patent portfolio for certain applications.
ERS, co-founded by Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier, 2020 Nobel Prize winner for gene-editing, provides access to the foundational CRISPR/Cas9 intellectual property. Over 90 patents are held in over eighty countries.
Lepton Pharmaceutical LTD is a biotechnology company developing a proprietary, breakthrough technology (Castling Technology) to substantially improve adaptive cell-mediated immune response (T-cells, CAR-T-cells, NK-cells.)
Dr. Daniel Zurr, CEO of Lepton said: “We are very pleased to establish this relationship and license agreement with ERS Genomics. It will greatly assist us to develop our innovative Castling technology to significantly improve immune cells efficiency and longevity to fight cancer.”
Eric Rhodes, CEO at ERS Genomics added: “Lepton’s Castling technology has great potential to impact the field of immunotherapies and we are pleased to help enable Lepton in pursuing this exciting approach.”
The Castling technology is a proprietary, miRNA-based general technology platform, essentially consisting of the manipulation of miRNA expression to achieve enhanced efficacy and longevity (reduced exhaustion) of cell-based therapies. miRNAs are noncoding RNAs that each affects the expression of hundreds of coding genes. The Castling technology utilizes miRNA pairs that impact immune-cells activity when in the microenvironment of cancer cells, selected, such that:
- one is a “harmful” miRNA, the expression of which is markedly increased in the immune cells due to the cancer cells presence, thereby promoting the demise of the immune cells activity through exhaustion and low effectiveness (cytotoxicity).
- the other one is a “beneficial” miRNA, the expression of which is markedly reduced in the immune cells due to the cancer cells presence, thereby promoting the abolishment of the activity and longevity of the immune cells.
Using the Castling technology, the “harmful” miRNA is replaced by the “beneficial” miRNA in a single gene-editing event thereby gaining a double effect on T-cell functionality.
Financial details of the agreement are not disclosed.
About ERS Genomics
ERS Genomics is a biotechnology company based in Dublin, Ireland. The company was formed to provide broad access to the foundational CRISPR/Cas9 intellectual property held by Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier. Non-exclusive licenses are available for research and sale of products and services across multiple fields including: research tools, kits, reagents; discovery of novel targets for therapeutic intervention; cell lines for discovery and screening of novel drug candidates; GMP production of healthcare products; companion animal and livestock health; production of industrial materials such as enzymes, biofuels and chemicals; and synthetic biology. For additional information please visit www.ersgenomics.com
About Lepton Pharmaceuticals
Lepton Pharmaceuticals LTD. is based in Israel. Lepton focuses on subtle and precise silencing of coding RNA expression by small non-coding RNA molecules, working via the DROSHA/DICER/RISC pathways, small interfering RNA (siRNA), and microRNA (miRNA), to develop products and services to, ultimately, improve therapies for underserved diseases and improve and change patients’ lives. For additional information please visit www.leptonpharma.com