Trade News
Basel, 15 January 2007
Roche
Diagnostics and Multilyte Limited sign Licence Agreement
Agreement
broadens Roche Diagnostics' position in the immunodiagnostic business
Roche
Diagnostics and Multilyte Limited today announced that they have concluded an Agreement which grants
Roche Diagnostics a licence under Multilyte's patents for sensitive multiparameter binding assays, including
immunoassays, enabling simultaneous detection and analysis of many different analytes in small test
samples of biological origin.
Under the terms of the Agreement Multilyte
grants to Roche Diagnostics a licence and Roche Diagnostics will pay a licence issuance fee and running
royalties on the sale of products covered by one or more claims of the patents licensed from Multilyte.
Financials of the deal were not disclosed.
The immunodiagnostic market
is the largest segment in the in-vitro diagnostics market with a current value of 9 billion Swiss francs.
The Agreement allows Roche Diagnostics to develop ultra sensitive microarray-based immunoassay and other
binding assay systems capable of simultaneously detecting and measuring the concentrations of multiple
analytes in a single reaction and will broaden the company’s immunodiagnostic menu.
About
Multilyte Limited
Multilyte Ltd. is a company founded in 1988 by Professor Roger
Ekins, FRS, head of Molecular Endocrinology, University College London. Shareholders are University
College London and Prof. Ekins. Multilyte owns all Prof. Ekins' intellectual property in the field of
multianalyte testing including basic and other formats, detection systems, etc. Prof. Ekins, who
is also well known as a pioneer in the field of radioimmunoassay and other highly sensitive label-based
binding assays, including the assays in blood of non-protein bound or “free” hormones and drugs, has
received numerous awards for his work in the microarray and binding assay field including the American
Association of Clinical Chemistry’s first T.E. Ullman award, the Prince of Wales Award for Innovation
and, more recently, the UK Department of Health’s first Lifetime Achievement Award for scientific contributions
to patient healthcare.
About Roche and the Roche Diagnostics
Division
Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is one of the world’s leading
research-focused healthcare groups in the fields of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. As a supplier of
innovative products and services for the early detection, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease,
the group contributes on a broad range of fronts to improving people’s health and quality of life. Roche
is a world leader in diagnostics, the leading supplier of medicines for cancer and transplantation and
a market leader in virology. Roche employs roughly 70,000 people in 150 countries and has R&D agreements
and strategic alliances with numerous partners, including majority ownership interests in Genentech
and Chugai. Roche’s Diagnostics Division offers a uniquely broad product portfolio and supplies a wide
array of innovative testing products and services to researchers, physicians, patients, hospitals and
laboratories world-wide. For further information, please visit our websites www.roche.com.
All
trademarks used or mentioned in this release are legally protected by law.