April 22, 2004
Amaethon Limited, the UK
based intellectual property business, announces that ArborGen
LLC, the US based forestry biotechnology company, has signed a
non-exclusive research licence and option agreement covering a
group of proprietary genes discovered within the
Centre for Novel Agricultural
Products (CNAP) the world class gene discovery research
centre based in the University of York, England. The financial
terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Dr Graham
P. Howe, CEO of Amaethon, stated “ As a world leader, ArborGen
is an ideal partner and collaborator to take the current genes
forward and to assist in the discovery of new targets. This
agreement further demonstrates the high quality and commercial
relevance of the research undertaken within our partner CNAP.”
Professor
Dianna Bowles, Director of CNAP, said “We are delighted to enter
a new partnership with ArborGen and gain the opportunity of
taking our scientific discoveries into application”
Dr. Maud A.
Hinchee, Chief Technology Officer at ArborGen commented “CNAP is
a first-class research centre, and ArborGen is pleased to be
able to apply their research discoveries towards improving
plantation trees grown for the forestry industry.”
About Amaethon Limited
Amaethon was established in 2003 as an innovative
partnership between the University of York and IP2IPO Group plc
and created to commercialise the research of CNAP, the flagship
plant and microbial gene discovery research centre based in the
University of York.
IP2IPO, the Alternative Investment Market listed
intellectual property business, invested £1.15m receiving a one
third equity stake. The University of York granted Amaethon
exclusive rights over CNAP’s research for 25 years in exchange
for a two-thirds equity position. In addition, IP2IPO has also
committed to make seed capital investments in spin-out companies
created by Amaethon based upon CNAP research.
Amaethon operates as an entirely stand-alone
business securing licenses, identifying and creating new
companies, and capturing and managing industry sponsored
research contracts from offices based in the Biosciences
Building on the York Science Park, England.
Amaethon’s objective is to become a world leading
technology commercialisation company in the field of gene
discovery research targeted and the utilisation of plants and
microbes as cell factories.
About ArborGen LLC
ArborGen LLC, formed in 2000, is committed to
improving trees and forestry through genetic research and
biotechnology. It is a joint venture partnership of biotech
researchers and plant scientist from a number of research based
institutions in the United States and New Zealand. This
combination of talents, expertise, infrastructure and diversity
of patented genetic materials has created a dynamic and
versatile team of more than 90 scientists and technicians who
are advancing the science of forest genetics.
ArborGen specializes in developing and
commercializing technology, products and services that provide
environmental and productivity benefits for the forest industry.
The focus of ArborGen's research program is on commercially
important plantation tree species that are planted world-wide.
Turning plant genes into corporate cash
By Patricia Short
Chemical &
Engineering News
via Checkbiotech.org
Amaethon aims to transfer university research in botany into
money-spinning deals with outside industry.
Amaethon—pronounced a-MY-e-thon—is a god of agriculture in
Celtic mythology. It’s also the name of a new
technology-transfer company, formed last November by the
University of York, in England, and venture-capitalists IP2IPO.
Amaethon was established as a stand-alone firm to commercialize
the research of the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products
(CNAP), a part of the University of York biology department
devoted to plant genetics.
The university owns two-thirds of Amaethon and has granted the
firm 25-year exclusive rights to CNAP’s research. IP2IPO holds
the remaining third, following a $2 million investment; the
venture-capital firm has also committed roughly $1.4 million to
spin-off companies based on CNAP research.
U.K.-based IP2IPO focuses on moving university-generated
intellectual property into the commercial sphere. For example,
last month, it launched in an initial public offering of
Offshore Hydrocarbon Mapping, an offshoot of the U.K’s
University of Southampton that finds underwater oil and gas.
The hookup with the University of York was the culmination of
work by Graham P. Howe in his position as commercial director of
CNAP. Howe—whose background prior to joining CNAP in 2002
includes stints at ICI, Chirotech (now part of Dow Chemical),
and Clariant’s Life Science Molecules unit—is now chief
executive officer of Amaethon.
In existence only six months, Amaethon—which has a full-time
staff of four—already has several commercial contracts under its
corporate belt.
Earlier this month, Amaethon signed a nonexclusive research
agreement in forestry biotechnology with ArborGen, Summerville,
S.C., based on a group of genes discovered at CNAP. ArborGen
itself is a partnership of biotech researchers and plant
scientists from a number of research-based institutions in the
U.S. and New Zealand.
As Maud A. Hinchee, chief technology officer at ArborGen, puts
it, “ArborGen is pleased to be able to apply [CNAP’s] research
discoveries toward improving plantation trees grown for the
forestry industry.”
And in March, Amaethon agreed to collaborate with Oxford
Chemicals Ltd. in flavor and fragrance chemicals. Under the
agreement, Oxford Chemicals—part of U.K. specialty chemicals
company Yule Catto—will cofund a proof-of-principle research
project, to be conducted by CNAP, aimed at creating new
enzyme-based routes to aroma chemicals (C&EN, March 29, page
12).
The collaboration will apply biocatalysts derived from
proprietary CNAP genes to the synthesis of aroma chemicals
identified by Oxford Chemicals. Oxford will have exclusive
rights in the area of flavors and fragrances; Amaethon will
retain the right to use the research in all other applications.
At the company’s official launch last month, Howe noted that
Amaethon has four main functions: developing projects, offering
research services, licensing, and coordinating spin-off
companies.
It seeks industry-funded research projects at CNAP, particularly
in analytical glycobiology—glycoproteins, polysaccharides, and
other glycoconjugates. Such industry funding, in turn, helps
support the research chairs at CNAP.
A variety of technologies fill Amaethon’s licensing quiver. Its
work in polyunsaturated fatty acids biosynthesis, for example,
exploits the genes encoding enzymes responsible for synthesis of
these compounds. Another licensing project involves a nucleic
acid molecule in the spider Euprosthenops spidroin. The molecule
encodes a protein present in the spider’s major dragline silk,
which shows, according to Amaetheon, better strength,
elasticity, and resistance to solvents than most dragline silks
from other species.
All of the company’s work focuses on what Howe calls the
“microbial cell factories” within plants. Products of these
factories can include fuels, plastics and bioplastics, fine
chemicals, pharmaceutical active ingredients, food additives,
cosmetic ingredients, vitamins, colorants, and aroma components.
They all contribute to what he sees as a market with
considerable growth potential.
For example, the global market for transgenic crops reached $3
billion in 2002 and is expected to hit $25 billion by 2010.
Amaethon is also keen to encourage strategic partnerships, Howe
says. For example, CNAP has established a phytochemistry
partnership, the Noble Laboratory, with the Plant Biology
Division of the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation in Ardmore,
Okla. The foundation is providing slightly more than $2 million
in funding for the laboratory, located at CNAP. Richard A.
Dixon, a professor at the Noble Foundation (in Ardmore), is
CNAP’s chair of phytochemical genomics and codirector of the
laboratory with professor Pierre Broun, who is CNAP’s chair of
metabolic engineering.
In U.K. academia, argues David Norwood, CEO of IP2IPO, “most
people who possess the deep intellectual property—the great
ideas—are hopeless at selling themselves to us, the venture
capitalists and merchant bankers. Others have been very good at
‘selling’—they have raised millions and lost it all doing silly
things. It has given genuine academics a bad name.
“IP2IPO wants to help its partners lead the way,” he says, “to
create value by exploiting ideas.”
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