A Massachusetts-based biotech says two pharmaceutical giants are trampling its intellectual property. Factor Bioscience Inc. filed suit Friday in Delaware federal court accusing Cellectis Inc. and AstraZeneca Plc of unlawfully exploiting patented gene-editing technology that Factor claims is at the heart of next-generation cancer treatments.
The lawsuit alleges direct and indirect infringement of three U.S. patents covering messenger RNA-based TALENs — a protein engineering tool designed to rewrite human DNA with precision. Factor seeks damages and an injunction to stop further use.
“This is a David v. Goliath story,” Factor CEO Matt Angel said in a statement. “Our [mRNA] TALENs slingshot holds the key to tomorrow’s therapies. If global pharma players can poach the innovations of startups like ours, it threatens to derail life-saving research.”
MIT Roots and the Birth of a Breakthrough
Factor’s lawsuit traces its technology back to the doctoral days of co-founders Matt Angel and Christopher Rohde at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Together, they pioneered what the company calls “the first method for gene-editing human cells using mRNA.” According to the filing, the mRNA approach proved “exceptionally effective” in producing gene-edited cells encoding TALENs — shorthand for transcription activator-like effector nucleases.
By contrast, Cellectis’ 2011 licenses from the University of Minnesota and Iowa State University only covered older methods, such as DNA plasmids and viral vectors.
