Geron Corp (GERN)

[esammee]

Rx, I think there is. Merck's platforms are the plasmid and the adeno...virus. It's certainly not the first time Dr. O's brought it up. (Maybe )Sometime when it's not this late and I'm not so tired, I'll go check prior transcripts and the 8k. Okay. Here's a start from UBS, April 06

>>This was published last year in the Journal of Immunology and led to last year's agreement with Merck, which is both a license of telomerase to them for their use on their non-dendritic platform, as well as a collaboration agreement that is managed by a joint research and joint development committee in which we are comparing and contrasting their plasmid and adenovirus platform with our dendritic cell platform with a view toward possibly combining both their and our platforms. If we should decide to do that, then we have, they have an option to negotiate a second deal which would be a license to our dendritic cell based vaccine. This work has gone along swimmingly well. We're very pleased with Merck's progress and there'll be some announcements later this year relative to their progress that they've made under license with us.<<
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>>GERON ENTERS INTO A COLLABORATION AND LICENSE AGREEMENT WITH MERCK & CO., INC. FOR CANCER VACCINES TARGETING TELOMERASE
Menlo Park, CA – July 18, 2005 – Geron Corporation (Nasdaq: GERN) announced today it has entered into a collaboration and license agreement with Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK) to develop a cancer vaccine targeting telomerase utilizing Merck’s expertise in vaccine technologies.

Under the terms of the agreement, Geron will receive an upfront payment, milestone payments upon achievement of certain development and regulatory events, and royalties. Merck has also agreed to acquire equity in Geron at a future date as part of Geron’s next round of financing. Additional financial terms were not disclosed. ...<<

http://www.geron.com/pressview.asp?id=723
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Isn't this what CEGE got from GTI?

>>MENLO PARK, CA — January 7, 2002 — Geron Corporation (Nasdaq: GERN) today announced a licensing agreement with Genetic Therapy, Inc. (GTI), giving GTI non-exclusive rights to Geron’s human telomerase (hTERT) promoter for the development of therapeutic products targeting cancer.

The agreement provides GTI the right to commercialize products using the hTERT promoter for cancer therapies. GTI will pay Geron a license fee, milestone payments and royalties on product sales.

The hTERT promoter regulates telomerase activity in a cell. Telomerase is an enzyme found in all cancers and is necessary for cancer cells to replicate indefinitely. Geron scientists have developed cancer-killing or “oncolytic” adenoviruses whose cancer-killing activity is controlled by the telomerase promoter. The virus infects and kills telomerase-positive cancer cells without impacting telomerase-negative normal cells. ...<<

http://www.geron.com/pressview.asp?id=439