NIH selects Regeneron to produce genetically altered mice for research

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, Sept. 7 - Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. said Thursday that it has been awarded a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health as part of the agency's Knockout Mouse Project.

The goal of the project is to build a comprehensive and broadly available resource of knockout mice - laboratory mice in which researchers have deactivated a specific gene of interest by disrupting or replacing it with an artificial piece of DNA - to accelerate the understanding of gene function and human diseases.

Regeneron will use its VelociGene technology to take aim at 3,500 of the most difficult genes to target and which are not currently the focus of other large-scale knockout mouse programs, the Tarrytown, N.Y., biotechnology company said in a news release.

Regeneron said it also has agreed to grant a limited license to a consortium of research institutions, the other major participants in the project, to use components of Regeneron's VelociGene technology in the Knockout Mouse Project.

The company said it will generate a collection of targeting vectors and targeted mouse embryonic stem cells that can be used to produce knockout mice. These materials will be made widely available to academic researchers without charge, but Regeneron said it will receive a fee for each targeted embryonic stem cell line.

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