EMD
Millipore, the Life Science division of Merck
KGaA of Darmstadt, Germany, and iPS
Academia Japan, Inc. (Kyoto, Japan) today announced a global
licensing agreement for AJ's induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell patent
portfolio. The non-exclusive agreement provides EMD Millipore the
opportunity to continue to develop and ultimately commercialize iPS
cells for research applications. Under the agreement, EMD Millipore will
continue to offer its STEMCCA™ reprogramming kits, which provide a
highly efficient, reproducible method for creating iPS cells. The iPS
cell patent portfolio is a result of work by Professor Shinya Yamanaka,
MD, PhD, Center for iPS Cell Research and Application at Kyoto
University, Japan.
"We are extremely honored to collaborate with AJ on furthering research
in the area iPS cell technology," said John Sweeney, Head, Bioscience
Business Unit, EMD Millipore."To collaborate with the founder of iPS
cell discovery provides the ideal opportunity for EMD Millipore to build
upon our current product offering of the STEMCCA™ reprogramming kits, as
well as further advance our research and discovery in the area of stem
cell technology, and to provide our customers with the tools necessary
in this important, breakthrough area of stem cell research."