We hereby announce that ID Pharma Co., Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of our company (hereinafter “ID Pharma”) has entered into a licensing agreement with Axol Bioscience to enable them to produce iPS cells using the CytoTune®-iPS technology ( ¹ ) owned by ID Pharma, and to supply and sell differentiated cells derived from these iPS cells as research products.

1. Outline of the Agreement

ID Pharma has granted Axol Bioscience global non-exclusive rights to produce iPS cells ( ² ) using the CytoTune®-iPS technology, to differentiate the iPS cells obtained, to sell for research purposes and for use in cell reprogramming contract services. In addition, uniquely, ID Pharma, has agreed to enable Axol’s customers who do not have access to ID Pharma’s Sendai technology licence, to purchase a project specific sub-licence, when they contract Axol fro cell reprogramming services.

ID Pharma will receive from Axol Bioscience an upfront payment and a fixed rate royalty with respect to sales value of these cells, and a fixed rate royalty with regard to contract service revenue and the project specific sub-licence.

2. Significance of the Agreement

Along with sales of human cells and human cell culture systems, Axol Bioscience provides services for generating tailored iPS cells and its differentiated cells from various sources of somatic cells. ID Pharma expects, with this agreement, further progression of the research using iPS cells and its differentiated cells generated by using SeV vector technologies.

ID Pharma proactively licenses the CytoTune®-iPS technology to enable licensees to generate iPS cells using CytoTune®-iPS and accelerate the commercial use of such iPS cells and derivatives thereof. Through such efforts ID Pharma aims to create new business opportunities through its fundamental technology the Sendai virus vector.

Please find also the announcement on ID Pharma’s website here and for English, please press here

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^{1.The CytoTune®-iPS is an iPS cell generation kit developed by combining factors involved in iPS cell generation, discovered by Professor Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, with ID Pharma’s Sendai virus vector.
iPS cells can be induced efficiently from somatic cells, such as fibroblasts, with a single application of vectors through the use of this kit.
These cells can be induced efficiently from peripheral blood and blood cells that can be collected without causing significant pain to the donor, and this method is considered to have superior performance compared with other methods.
Further, iPS cells generated using this kit have received high appraisal from researchers in Japan and abroad because the original cell’s chromosomes are left intact, and because the vector used in iPS cell induction disappears.
ID Pharma launched the sales of an iPS cell generation kit, CytoTune®-iPS 2.0LG in 2016 November.}

^{2.iPS represents “induced pluripotent stem cell”. It is a kind of stem cell capable of differentiating into every tissue and cell which is produced by introducing a specific gene into a somatic cell.}