Cellectis wins EU patent for CRISPR T cell therapies

The European Patent Office granted Cellectis S.A. (Euronext:ALCLS; NASDAQ:CLLS) a patent covering use of RNA-guided endonucleases to develop T cell immunotherapies. Cellectis Chairman and CEO Andre Choulika told BioCentury that companies using endonucleases including CRISPR-Cas9 and Cpf1 to develop such candidates in Europe will be required to license rights to the patent.

Patent EP3004337 covers genetic modification of T cells using an RNA-guided endonuclease or a guide RNA that directs the endonuclease to at least one genome locus. The RNA-guided endonuclease must be expressed from transfected mRNA, and the guide RNA must be expressed as a transcript from a DNA vector. Cellectis said the patent will expire in April 2034...