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An Interdisciplinary Research Centre at the University of Cambridge
 
More than 100 research reagents available for licensing through Cambridge Enterprise

Cambridge Enterprise has passed an important milestone in its efforts to bring the benefit of research reagents generated at the University of Cambridge to the worldwide research community, with more than 100 reagents now available for licensing.

Research reagents are the building blocks which allow
medical researchers to carry out their work. The reagents developed at
Cambridge, such as antibodies, cell lines and hybridomas, are in great demand by
the wider research community and are key tools in the fight against diseases
such as diabetes, cancer and autoimmune disorders.

 

Rapid access to these reagents is key, and a whole
industry has become established to supply these reagents to researchers across
the world, reliably and at short notice.

Cambridge Enterprise, the University’s commercialisation
group, has been addressing the demand for reagents developed at Cambridge by providing
a service which makes them available for licensing by commercial partners.

The researchers who developed the material share in the
returns from any sales of the reagents, generating income which can support
further research activities.

The service provided by Cambridge Enterprise now has more
than 100 reagents that are available for licensing and has concluded over 140 commercial
agreements for materials.

In order to maximise the availability of reagents Cambridge
Enterprise usually licenses reagents under non-exclusive agreements. Researchers
are free to continue to distribute their material as they wish to academic
colleagues and collaborators.

“Specialised reagents with good academic credentials are
such an important research tool in so many different fields,” said Professor Ken
Siddle of the Department of Clinical Biochemistry, who has developed a number
of antibodies to the insulin and IGF receptors for the study of insulin
resistance and non-insulin diabetes. “Additionally, the service which Cambridge
Enterprise provides allows researchers to achieve demonstrable impact from
their research, which has become a key consideration over the past few years.”

“We have been providing this service for close to five
years,” said Dr Emma Barker of Cambridge Enterprise. “We’ve seen a steady
increase over that time period, demonstrating the value of the service which we
provide, which expands the area of research and allows researchers to get a
share of revenue from any sales, which they may use to support the research of
their group into the future.”

For
further information, please visit www.enterprise.cam.ac.uk/reagents