ES Cell scores US grant, license deal

Melbourne's ES Cell International has scored a double coup in the United States with the awarding of a National Institutes of Health infrastructure grant and the signing of a research licensing deal.

In the latest in a series of research deals and grants for the local company, ES Cell was named as one of four research groups to share in $US3.5 million from the NIH earmarked for stem cell research infrastructure.

Based at the Baker Medical Research Institute at the Alfred Hospital, ES Cell will be able to use the funds to employ more researchers and improve its facilities.

The money follows a $250,000 Victorian government infrastructure grant awarded to the company on April 22 under the Science, Technology and Innovation program.

The other recipients were Cellsaurus - a US affiliate of Adelaide company BresaGen - the University of California, and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).

It was with the latter recipient that ES Cell's latest licensing deal was also struck at the weekend.

Under the agreement, the Melbourne company will be able to distribute its human ES cells for research worldwide.

WARF is the technology transfer organisation for the University of Wisconsin, Madison and holds the patents to Dr James Thomson's discovery of human ES cells.

ES Cell International chief executive Robert Klupacs said the deal enabled his company to contribute to the critical mass of research in the field of stem cell science.

"We are delighted to have reached this agreement with WARF, enabling ES Cell International to distribute its stem cell lines under material transfer agreements to all researchers throughout the world," Klupacs said.

"The agreement allows us to contribute to the development of critical mass in this exciting area of research, while maintaining our primary focus which is the development of therapeutic products."

WARF managing director Carl Gulbrandsen said the agreement would provide more choices for scientists and enable researchers worldwide to pursue the study of ES cells.

"It is WARF's goal to enable scientists' access to a wide variety of cells to move embryonic stem cell discovery forward as fast as possible," Gulbrandsen said. "Only by increasing the number of scientists working in this field will these researchers bring the tomorrow of medicine closer to today."

On April 12, ES Cell became the first international company to enter an agreement to provide ES cell lines to the NIH. The company was chosen because its lines complied with an edict issued by President George Bush in August last year.

Under his guidelines, federally funded researchers are allowed to use cells produced elsewhere in the world so long as they were not created after August.

ES Cell and BresaGen, which also signed a memorandum of understanding with the NIH last week, are the two Australian companies to meet the criteria.