

According to Godwin, “such methods are claimed as being particularly suitable for drug screening applications.” The Redistribution assay broadly refers to monitoring the movement of proteins or parts of proteins that are fused to fluorescent proteins such as GFP in cells. GFP is of particular value because researchers can transfect cells with it in such a way that it is expressed in easily detectable amounts, and often in conjunction with another protein of interest or in response to a particular genetic pathway being altered in some way.īristol-Myers Squibb’s agreement entitles it to use GFP to conduct primary and secondary screening profiling research and lead optimization “for the development of human therapeutics and human prophylactics, and in the construction of transgenic animal lines,” according to GE Healthcare’s official June 9 statement regarding the new licensing deals.Īdditionally, Bristol-Myers Squibb obtained the rights to a specific usage of GFP as found in the Redistribution application, part of the patent portfolio of BioImage. Besides being a crucial tool in basic cell biology, GFP is widely used in live cell- and live animal-based drug screening - so much so that the lasers and detectors of most turn-key microscopes, plate scanners, cytometers, and the like, including GE Healthcare’s own IN Cell Analyzer, are typically optimized for GFP excitation and detection. If one of the goals of GE Healthcare is to expand GE’s presence in basic cell and molecular biology research, acquiring Amersham’s rights to offer comprehensive licensing to GFP is certainly a large step in that direction.
GFP VS GFTP GE BREAKERS LICENSE
Non-profit organizations are not required to obtain a license for GFP-based research. According to Godwin, more than 65 companies currently have licenses to GFP.


GFP is commercially available from BD Biosciences Clontech, Godwin said, but in order to purchase it, for-profit organizations must first either take out a license from GE Healthcare or already have a license. “GE Healthcare will receive a license fee every time it executes a sub-license agreement,” Godwin continued, “ the agreement can be renewed annually or for the life of the patents.”
GFP VS GFTP GE BREAKERS SERIES
“GE Healthcare (formerly Amersham) has, via a series of strategic alliances, acquired the rights to offer sub-licenses to the AvGFP intellectual property held by BioImage A/S, Columbia University, and Invitrogen IP Holdings (the successor to Aurora Biosciences), thus enabling users to obtain these rights from a single source,” Godwin wrote. Via an e-mail interview, Godwin explained the details of GFP’s commercial evolution to Inside Bioassays. That blockbuster acquisition, which was finalized in April, involved forming GE Healthcare out of Amersham and GE’s Medical Sciences division.īecause Amersham had positioned itself to sub-license specific GFP intellectual property held by various corporations and institutions, GE Healthcare now takes over the licensing. The deals were completed by GE Healthcare’s predecessor, Amersham Biosciences, prior to GE’s acquisition of the company, according to Sian Godwin, GE Healthcare’s product manager for cellular analysis reagents. GE’s newly formed $14 billion GE Healthcare unit announced last week that Bristol-Myers Squibb and Regeneron have signed licensing agreements with GE Healthcare for the rights to use GFP in their respective cell-based research programs. One of the most widely used cell biology tools - green fluorescent protein from the jellyfish Aequoria victoria - is now under licensure from a unit of one of the world’s biggest corporations, General Electric. Advances in Clinical Genomics Profiling.
