Geneart

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Geneart AG

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1999
Seat Regensburg , Germany
management Ralf Wagner (CEO)
Number of employees 190 (2008)
sales € 15.7 million (2008)
Branch biotechnology

The GENEART AG with its headquarters in Regensburg was a biotechnology company focused on the development and production of synthetic genes had specialized. Geneart was the world leader in gene design and synthesis .

Since April 2010 the company has been majority owned by the US group Life Technologies , which in turn was taken over by Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2014 .

history

In 1999 Geneart was founded as a spin-off from the University of Regensburg by Ralf Wagner, Marcus Graf and Hans Wolf as Geneart GmbH . At that time, Wagner was head of the HIV vaccine development & gene therapy department at the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene at the University of Regensburg. He needed a set of artificial genes to develop a novel AIDS vaccine. The prices of the providers of these genes were too high for him, which is why he commissioned his doctoral student Markus Graf with the synthesis of the required genes. The genes produced by Graf gave good test results and other genes were also effective in research and industry.

In 2003, Geneart was a finalist for the German Entrepreneur Award in the rising star category. In the same year the company won the Bavarian Founder's Prize.

In 2005 the company generated sales of € 4.5 million and was profitable for the first time since the company was founded. A branch was established in Toronto . A year later, sales rose to € 7.8 million.

In May 2006, the company went public (IPO), where Geneart shares were traded over the counter . The proceeds from the IPO amounted to € 17.5 million. In 2008 sales were € 15.7 million. In the same year, Geneart won the € 100,000 European Biotechnica Award in the field of biotechnology and life sciences . In 2009 sales of € 17.2 million were achieved.

The US company Life Technologies acquired Geneart in April 2010 for around 56 million euros. This year, Geneart produced around 3000 different genes per month with around 180 employees. Life Technologies itself was created in 2008 from the merger of Invitrogen and Applied Biosystems . The takeover of Geneart took place via Applied Biosystems Deutschland GmbH, which held over 95% of the shares in Geneart AG in August 2010, thus creating the prerequisites for a squeeze-out , which was then decided at the Extraordinary General Meeting of Geneart AG in November 2010 has been.

Company founder Ralf Wagner was CEO and CSO of Geneart until mid-2012 .

Today Geneart is a brand ( GeneArt ) of Life Technologies and GeneArt AG is a 100% subsidiary of Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Products

The company provided technologies for the development and manufacture of novel drugs and vaccines. At the same time, customers used the services in synthetic biology, for example to improve enzymes, for example as detergent additives, and to construct bacteria that produce or break down complex biopolymers and compounds (e.g. plastics, petroleum, etc.). A self-developed sequence design software (GeneOptimizer) served as the technology basis, with which complex or repetitive sequences can be produced in the laboratory in a second step.

In 2008, Geneart received the largest global gene synthesis contract to complete the Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC) from the US National Institutes of Health . As part of this contract with a volume of around US $ 6 million, 2,400 different genes and 1,500 gene variants were produced which could not be isolated with the classic methods of biotechnology during the MGC project (2002 to 2006).

The company also produced DNA fragments that were used in the creation of the first synthetic bacterial genome by the J. Craig Venter Institute .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b GENEART successfully completes order to complete the "Mammalian Gene Collection" of the US health authority NIH. In: pressebox.de. November 10, 2008, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  2. ↑ a b GENEART completes order to complete the Mammalian Gene Collection. In: stock-world.de. November 10, 2008, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  3. ↑ a b c Susanne Kutter: Biotechnology: Artificial life puts the biotech industry in turmoil - Technology - Wirtschaftswoche. In: wiwo.de. June 2, 2010, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  4. ^ Geneart AG. (No longer available online.) In: bayern-innovativ.de. Archived from the original on July 11, 2015 ; Retrieved July 10, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bayern-innovativ.de
  5. ↑ a b biotechnologie.de - Initiative of the Federal Minister: Biotechnologie.de - Themendossiers. (No longer available online.) In: biotechnologie.de. July 10, 2015, archived from the original on July 11, 2015 ; Retrieved July 10, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.biotechnologie.de
  6. ↑ Olaf Fritsche: The new creation. Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-644-02711-4 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  7. ^ Regensburg location - Thermo Fisher Scientific. In: karriere-thermofisher.com. February 4, 2014, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  8. ↑ a b Geneart - German Founder Award. In: deutscher-gruenderpreis.de. Retrieved July 10, 2015 .
  9. ↑ Geneart company in BioPark receives Bavarian Founder's Prize - BioPark Regensburg GmbH. In: biopark-regensburg.de. May 2004, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Geneart expands and goes public - BioPark Regensburg GmbH. In: biopark-regensburg.de. May 2006, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Geneart AG increases production and sales - BioPark Regensburg GmbH. In: biopark-regensburg.de. May 2007, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  12. ↑ Holger Bengs: Investing in Biotechnology - simplified. FinanzBook Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-862-48533-8 , p. 31 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  13. ↑ Successful investments ( Memento of the original dated May 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Bayern Kapital GmbH (PDF file)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bayernkapital.de
  14. ↑ Geneart AG wins EUROPEAN BIOTECHNICA AWARD - BioPark Regensburg GmbH. In: biopark-regensburg.de. October 2008, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Rödl & Partner advises takeover of Geneart AG. (No longer available online.) In: rws-verlag.de. April 9, 2010, archived from the original on July 10, 2015 ; Retrieved July 10, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rws-verlag.de
  16. ↑ Winfried Köppelle: Geneart sold to the USA. In: laborjournal.de. April 12, 2010, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  17. ↑ GENEART AG: 2nd quarter / 1st half year 2010 - GENEART Europe AG - press release. In: pressebox.de. August 17, 2010, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  18. ↑ GENEART - Domination Agreement / Squeeze-out / Extraordinary General Meeting. (No longer available online.) In: flive.de. September 27, 2010, formerly in the original ; Retrieved July 10, 2015 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.flive.de  
  19. ↑ SpruchZ: Spruchverfahren Law & Practice: Squeeze-out GENEART AG: Spruchverfahren is being extended. In: spruchverfahren.blogspot.de. April 2, 2014, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  20. ↑ Prof. Dr. Ralf Wagner - BioPark Regensburg GmbH. In: biopark-regensburg.de. Retrieved July 10, 2015 .
  21. ↑ Geneart Catalog - Life Technologies. In: lifetechnologies.com. Retrieved July 10, 2015 .
  22. ↑ GeneArt AG / Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. - BioPark Regensburg GmbH. In: biopark-regensburg.de. Retrieved July 10, 2015 .
  23. ^ Pengcheng Fu: Systems Biology and Synthetic Biology. John Wiley & Sons, 2009, ISBN 978-0-470-43797-1 , p. 281 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  24. ↑ JCVI: Research / Projects / Synthetic Bacterial Genome / Press Release. (No longer available online.) In: jcvi.org. January 24, 2008, archived from the original on July 11, 2015 ; accessed on July 10, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jcvi.org