Biotech Joint Venture For BASF

German chemical and pharmaceutical company BASF has signed an agreement with the US company Lynx Therapeutics to form a biotechnology joint venture.

BASF will hold a 51% stake in the new company, BASF-Lynx Bioscience, which will be based in Heidelberg, Germany. BASF will provide the initial funding in the first five years, and will place certain genetic engineering know-how at the disposal of the new firm. Lynx will bring its DNA-sequencing technology to the deal.

A second agreement has been signed by the two firms conferring on BASF the right to use the Lynx sequencing technology for research work of its own outside the joint venture. This contract will run for two years initially, and involves a payment of $19 million to Lynx.