Horizon Discovery and Mammoth Biosciences announced recently that they will collaborate to develop new CRISPR tools, with the aim of generating new engineered cell lines for the biopharmaceutical industry.

Under the terms of the agreement, Horizon and Mammoth will collaborate to identify and optimize novel proteins owned by Mammoth, and then license those proteins to Horizon. They will then be used to develop engineered cell lines. Horizon will have exclusive rights to utilize this novel bioproduction approach, and will also be allowed to sublicense it to other companies for purposes of modifying their own proprietary cell lines.

Horizon will pay an undisclosed consideration and issue warrants to Mammoth for the exclusive rights being licensed. The warrants will be issued within 30 days and will give Mammoth the right to subscribe to a number of ordinary shares in Horizon equivalent to 0.5 percent of the issued share capital of Horizon at the market price on the date of grant. These warrants will be capable of exercise from the date of the grant to Dec. 12, 2029.

"Horizon first entered the bioproduction market around five years ago as a new entrant to the market with a commercially-disruptive CHO cell line," Horizon CEO Terry Pizzie said in a statement. "We are now committed to delivering the next generation of CHO cell lines to an industry where greater flexibility, increased speed to market and cost reduction are key drivers. We believe that our expertise in cell line engineering can be leveraged to address many of these issues and, with the addition of Mammoth's technology, we will be able to become a disruptive provider of best in class engineered CHO cells."