Qiagen Adds New Licenses to Molecular Diagnostics Portfolio

Qiagen (Hilden, German) announced that it has acquired licenses from Roche, as well as from Ortho Clinical Diagnostics. These two license agreements significantly expand Qiagen's rights to real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for use in in vitro diagnostics (IVD). Financial terms were not disclosed.

The two separate and independent agreements provide Qiagen with access to a major portfolio of additional patent and marketing rights, which were not covered by the original licensing agreements with Roche. Through these agreements Qiagen is broadening its technology portfolio to assay technologies and diagnostic tests using almost any basic PCR patent and real-time PCR patent rights related to reagents and methods for practicing PCR and real-time PCR for IVD.

Through the license extension agreement with Roche Qiagen is now licensed under all real-time (RT) PCR patents and pending patent applications owned or controlled by Roche Diagnostics. The agreement with Roche includes, but is not limited to, additional enzyme patent rights further PCR improvement patent rights and pathogen specific patent rights.

In addition, Qiagen obtained a license from Ortho Clinical Diagnostics to patents related to a taq-polymerase antibody mediated method used to initiate PCR. This is often referred to as a Hot-Start technology because it accelerates the activation of PCR enzymes and thereby accelerates the start of the PCR process. The license gives Qiagen rights in the fields of in IVD, applied testing, and research.

Real-time PCR is the most widely accepted technology for the quantitative amplification and detection of nucleic acids and has become a strong standard in life sciences, applied testing and molecular diagnostics, said Achim Ribbe, Qiagen's executive director, corporate business development. The acquisition of these new patent licensing rights, together with our own PCR related intellectual property rights, creates for Qiagen what is probably the broadest license portfolio for the basic patent rights related to reagents and methods for practicing PCR and real-time PCR and related products. These additional licenses bring to Qiagen valuable assets which expand Qiagen's technology leadership in sample and assay technologies for the life sciences, applied testing, and molecular diagnostics.


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