TET Systems and AMC/STW enter into an assignment agreement

TET Systems Holding (TSH), a privatelyheld, German biotech company based in Heidelberg, the Academic Medical Center (AMC), and Technology Foundation STW announced today that they have entered into an assignment agreement.

Scientists at the AMC have previously developed a novel series of reverse transactivators with improved properties. Under the terms of the agreement, AMC and STW assign the rights to the eight patent applications covering these new Tet transactivators to TSH for commercialization.

"We are very pleased to sign this agreement with AMC and STW. Since TET Systems was established in 2004, all relevant IP covering the Tet Technology was in one hand and could be offered to our licensees as a package. With the acquisition of these patent applications from AMC and STW, we broadened our IP portfolio and the rights to the core Tet Technology are again unified and can now be offered to our existing licensees and new interested parties," stated Dr. Ernst Boehnlein, CEO of TET Systems. "TET Systems has been continuously growing its number of licensees and users of the Tet Technology over the past years. From now on, interested parties can again do 'onestop shopping' for the relevant Tet Technology."

"We are excited to enter into this partnership with TET Systems Holding as it opens the way to broad use of our improved transactivators in the scientific community, but also in the biotech and pharma industry", added Dr. Joris Heus of AMC's Technology Transfer Office. "The existing scientific relationship between our researchers at AMC and the inventors of the Tet Technology formed the basis for the new IP generated at AMC and led to this agreement with TET Systems."

About AMC and STW

AMC: The Academic Medical Center (AMC) is one of the foremost research institutions in the Netherlands, as well as one of its largest hospitals. Over 7000 people work here to provide integrated patient care, fundamental and clinical scientific research, and teaching. The AMC complex houses the university hospital and the faculty of medicine of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, the medical department of the Royal Tropical Institute and the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development. A number of biotech companies (some of which are AMC spinoffs) are located on the premises. This concentration of expertise makes the centre a breeding ground for fruitful scientific collaboration.

The group of Prof. Ben Berkhout is among Europe's leading groups in the field of HIVrelated research, focusing on new therapies as well as basic research, which includes the viral evolution model that led to the development of the improved Tet transactivators.

STW: Technology Foundation STW aims to realize knowledge transfer between academic research and users in general and industry in particular by financing excellent scientific research in technology and unite researchers and potential users from the start. The foundation was founded in 1981. Nowadays the STW office has 50 fte. About 500 projectleaders and 750 temporary scientists are working on STW research. There is an active cooperation with over 600 ventures.