Geron, Exeter Affiliates Merge to Create Livestock Cloning Shop
By GenomeWeb,
GenomeWeb
| 08. 12. 2008
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) - Geron and Exeter Life Sciences said today that Start Licensing, a joint venture between the two firms, and ViaGen, a subsidiary of Exeter, have merged to form a new entity that will focus on animal cloning.
Start manages and licenses a portfolio of intellectual property rights related to animal reproductive technologies, including nuclear transfer cloning technology that was developed at the Roslin Foundation to clone Dolly the sheep. ViaGen is an animal genomics and livestock cloning firm.
Geron and Exeter said that the merger of the firms combines the "full breadth" of Start's nuclear transfer cloning IP with ViaGen's in-house breeding services and expertise in advanced reproductive technologies, including cloning, "to provide a one-stop licensing and operating company" for animal cloning.
"We believe it makes sound business sense to join a patent estate for nuclear transfer that has been tested and is recognized as dominant with a leading operating company in the field," said David Greenwood, Geron's executive vice president and CFO, in a statement.
Jonathan Thatcher, Exeter Life Science's CEO, said that the combined...
Related Articles
Cathy Tie seems to be good at starting businesses but not so dedicated to maintaining them. CGS, like many others, first heard of her thanks to Caiwei Chen and Antonio Regalado in MIT Technology Review, May 2025, as the partner (perhaps bride) of the notorious Chinese scientist He Jiankui, described in the headline as “China’s Frankenstein.” He prefers “Chinese Darwin.” She ran his Twitter account for a while, contributing such gems as:
Get in luddite, we’re going gene editing...
By Laura DeFrancesco, Nature Biotechnology | 03.17.2026
The first gene editors designed to fix genetic lesions in mutation-agnostic ways are poised to enter the clinic. Tessera Therapeutics and Alltrna, two Flagship Pioneering-funded companies, are gearing up to test novel genetic medicines in humans. Tessera received regulatory clearance...
By Darren Incorvaia, Fierce Biotech | 03.11.2026
A new method for safely inserting large chunks of DNA into genomes has now measured up in mice, potentially paving the way for the next generation of gene editing medicines.
The approach, which is described in a Nature paper...
By Carolyn Riley Chapman and Nirvan Bhatia, Hastings Bioethics Forum | 03.12.2026
Last year, researchers saved an infant named KJ from a life-threatening rare metabolic disorder using a customized gene editing therapy. This was the first time that an individualized gene therapy was used to treat a human patient, and it has...
