Chromos enters into license agreement with Becton Dickinson for T-cell expansion patents.

Chromos Molecular Systems, Inc. (Burnaby, Canada) said that a patent license has been granted to Becton Dickinson and Company, a global medical technology company, under Chromos' United States Patents 6,316,257 and 6,890,753 and their foreign counterparts relating to expansion of antigen-specific T- cells. Under terms of the agreement, BD is granted a license to the Chromos patents for a limited field of use and will pay license fees, maintenance fees, milestone payments and royalties on sales of products and services covered by the patent. The financial terms and the field of use of the license were not disclosed.

"We are extremely pleased with this agreement with BD," said Alistair Duncan, President and CEO of Chromos. "This is the first license agreement we have signed related to our REM technology and is part of our longer term plans to commercialize the REM technology. We are especially pleased to enter into this agreement with such a highly regarded company with the global reach of BD."

The patents licensed to BD are part of Chromos' REM technology portfolio that was acquired in its acquisition of CellExSys, Inc. Chromos' REM technology is a proprietary approach for expansion of antigen-specific T-cells in which the number of these immune cells is amplified in order to enhance the body's natural ability to fight disease. The REM method selects the rare cells that are capable of eliminating disease and expands these cells to clinically relevant numbers that allow the body to fight the disease effectively.

Chromos is a cellular engineering and therapeutics company creating value through engineering production quality cell lines for the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals, and the development of innovative biological therapies for debilitating diseases. Chromos has exclusive worldwide rights to two platform technologies, the ACE System (Artificial Chromosome Expression) and REM (Rapid Expansion Method) technology. In the near term, Chromos will focus on continued commercialization of the ACE System for engineering cell lines. To date Chromos has entered into corporate partnerships related to cell line engineering with partners including Pfizer, Inc., Centocor, Inc. and Cambridge Antibody Technology. In addition, the company has strategic alliances with AppTec Laboratory Services, Inc., a leading biopharmaceutical contract manufacturer and with SAFC Biosciences, a member of the Sigma-Aldrich Group providing cell culture media development services to biopharmaceutical customers.

Chromos Molecular Systems, Inc.

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