United Kingdom-based Horizon Discovery Group has signed a non-exclusive out-licensing agreement with an undisclosed United States-based immuno-oncology company.

It was reported yesterday that the contract has been signed for its technologies to support the development and manufacture of a biomanufacturing cell line for commercial use.

According to the terms of the contract, Horizon has licensed to the Partner a novel cell line engineering technology and non-exclusive rights to Horizon's proprietary Helitron transposon gene editing technology for an undisclosed financial consideration. The cell line engineering technology will be utilised to modify a present Horizon biomanufacturing cell line to generate an intermediate, which can easily be further modified through the application of Horizon's proprietary Helitron transposon gene editing technology to introduce specific changes such as the integration of antibody sequences. The intermediate cell line is intended to allow rapid development of a wide range of cell lines designed to produce specific antibodies, allowing more cost effective and efficient antibody manufacture in the future for all the Partner's development programmes. Horizon retains commercial rights to the improved cell line and Helitron transposon technology and will seek additional third-party license agreements for these technologies and others under development to enable cutting edge science and to drive novel workflows that are at the core of its partners' businesses.