A cross-licensing agreement covering technologies used toproduce transgenic animals was announced Wednesday by DNXInc. of Princeton, N.J., and GenPharm International Inc. ofMountain View, Calif.

Both companies are developing transgenic animals containinghuman genes for use as models to study human diseases and tomanufacture human proteins. DNX, for example, is attemptingto produce human hemoglobin in pigs.

Privately held DNX and GenPharm will pay up-front and annuallicensing fees plus royalties on products resulting from the useof the other's techniques.

The agreement covers DNX's patent on a microinjectiontechnique for introducing human genes into an animal embryoand GenPharm's exclusive license to a University of Utah patentapplication for homologous recombination technology. The DNXpatent covers a technique for knocking out an endogenous genein an embryo so that a foreign gene can be substituted.

"DNX and GenPharm are the only companies to have bothtechnologies in-house," said Jonathan MacQuitty, GenPharm'spresident and chief executive officer. GenPharm has no pactwith other transgenic developers: Transgenic Sciences Inc.,Genzyme Corp. and Granada BioSciences Inc. --Rachel Nowak

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