Sartorius Stedim Biotech And GE Healthcare Life Sciences Sign Cross-Licensing Agreement
Agreement covers intellectual property relating to biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies
Sartorius Stedim Biotech has entered into a patent cross-licensing agreement with GE Healthcare Life Sciences. This will enable the further development of each company's current and future biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies.
"Signing this agreement represents our mutual respect for intellectual property. In the immediate term it will enable us to employ the technologies covered by the patents in the license agreements to further advance the controls of single use devices," said Catarina Flyborg, General Manager BioProcess Products at GE Healthcare Life Sciences. "Furthermore our customers will profit from the freedom to employ these proprietary control mechanisms, without violating patent rights, when sourced from either GE Healthcare Life Sciences or Sartorius Stedim Biotech."
Reinhard Vogt, Executive Vice President of Marketing, Sales and Services, Sartorius Stedim Biotech commented: "Like GE Healthcare Life Sciences, we have primarily entered into these license agreements for the benefit of our customers. The agreement will enable both our companies to provide a greater selection of products as well as accelerate the development of new and innovative technologies for applications in the biopharmaceutical manufacturing industry."
Under the agreement, Sartorius Stedim Biotech has granted GE Healthcare Life Sciences a sublicense to certain patents held by the University of Maryland (UMBC) to which Sartorius Stedim Biotech has access under an exclusive license agreement with Fluorometrix, a spin-off of UMBC. These patent rights cover bioreactors with at least two optical sensors for monitoring biotechnological manufacturing processes. GE Healthcare Life Sciences has granted Sartorius Stedim Biotech a sublicense to patent rights that it has licensed from SciLog Inc. (www.scilog.com), a leading innovator in automated and single-use purification systems as well as disposable sensor technology. These patent rights cover proprietary technologies for the automated, aseptic transfer of solutions in bioprocessing applications. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
About Sartorius Stedim Biotech
Sartorius Stedim Biotech is a leading provider of cutting-edge equipment and services for the development, quality assurance and production processes of the biopharmaceutical industry. Its integrated solutions covering fermentation, filtration, purification, fluid management and lab technologies are supporting the biopharmaceutical industry around the world to develop and produce drugs safely, timely and economically. Sartorius Stedim Biotech focuses on single-use technologies and value-added services to meet the rapidly changing technology requirements of the industry it serves. Strongly rooted in the scientific community and closely allied with customers and technology partners, the company is dedicated to its philosophy of "turning science into solutions".
Headquartered in Aubagne, France, Sartorius Stedim Biotech is listed on the Eurolist of Euronext Paris. With its own manufacturing and R&D sites in Europe, North America and Asia and a global network of sales companies, Sartorius Stedim Biotech enjoys a worldwide presence. Its key manufacturing and R&D site is in Germany. The company employs nearly 2,600 people, and in 2010 earned sales revenue of 432.9 million euros.
About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems. Our "healthymagination" vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company. Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information, visit www.gehealthcare.com
For more information, visit www.gelifesciences.com or http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com/http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com
SOURCE: Sartorius Stedim Biotech