Dec 2 2009
Unidym, Inc., a majority owned subsidiary of Arrowhead Research Corporation (NASDAQ: ARWR), announced today that it has entered an exclusive license agreement with Nano-C for patents covering fullerene derivatives. The license provides Nano-C exclusive rights to U.S. Patent No. 5,739,376 and foreign counterparts in the field of photovoltaics.
In recent years, researchers and companies seeking to commercialize novel thin film Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) solar technologies have focused on using fullerene derivatives as the n-type semiconductor in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. The use of fullerenes as the electron acceptor and transporter results in higher quantum efficiencies of the cells.
“The ‘376 patent family covers many of the fullerene derivatives used in OPV, including the widely used C60 and C70 PCBM compounds,” stated Viktor Vejins, CEO of Nano-C. “We are delighted to add this patent to our growing IP portfolio, which further strengthens our position in fullerene manufacture, purification, separation and derivatization. As a fully integrated supplier, the exclusive rights obtained by Nano-C under this agreement will benefit our customers as they commercialize OPV-based devices.”
“We chose to execute this license agreement because we believe Nano-C is the leader in fullerene technology and products for the emerging thin film solar industry,” stated Mark Tilley, CEO of Unidym. “We are pleased to enable Nano-C to unleash the potential of modified fullerenes in thin film solar.”
Unidym will also cooperate with Nano-C to supply a variety of patented derivatives to customers for uses beyond Photovoltaics. This cooperation will expand the market for devices that use this family of patents. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.