GTG in third US licence deal

Melbourne-based Genetic Technologies (ASX: GTG) has licensed its non-coding DNA patents to a third US genomics company, Perlegen Sciences, for about $1.6 million in cash and securities.

GTG executive chairman Dr Mervyn Jacobson noted that the agreement was the biggest licence for the company to date. Earlier this year, GTG licensed its patents to Sequenom and Nanogen, for $1 million and $620,000 respectively.

Perlegen Sciences is a subsidiary of microarray manufacturer Affymetrix, and uses high-density microarrays to scan human genomes. It plans to use GTG's patents to analyse 50 human genomes at single-base resolution and examine the relationship of the genomic information obtained to disease associations and response to drugs.

"Perlegen don't have a product, they are doing in-house research, so in essence this is a research licence," Jacobson said. "[The licensing deal] provides further validation of our technology. I imagine it will result in other potential licensees making a move and securing their licenses."

Jacobson said that GTG was in "intense" negotiations with about 10 companies at present and was expanding its licensing infrastructure.

"It may be that this project is taking longer than expected but it is going to be much bigger," he said. "I expect in the next few deals we may start to have royalties attached as well as an up-front fee."

The license to use GTG's patents will not extend to Perlegen's parent company, Affymetrix.

At the time of writing, GTG's share price had risen 5 per cent to 40 cents.