Biosyntech GmbH — company profile
Overview. The tracked entity is Biosyntech Biochemische Synthesetechnik GmbH (commonly "Biosyntech"), founded in 1981 in Hamburg, West Germany, by Prof. Dr. Hubert Köster, a professor of organic chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Hamburg. Contemporary press described it as the first genetic-engineering company founded in the Federal Republic. It operated from Stresemannstrasse 268–280 in Hamburg-Altona and was privately held; a 1983–84 account put it at roughly 14 employees. Köster's own biography states the company was later sold to a U.S. firm and that Biosyntech GmbH is "now Prodigo Biochem GmbH" in Hamburg; I could not independently verify a currently operating successor entity, so present-day status, revenue and headcount are unverified.
Products / operations. Biosyntech was an operating reagents-and-chemistry supplier, not a licensor shell. Its catalogue covered reagents and building blocks for oligonucleotide synthesis via phosphotriester and phosphite methods, linkers, adapters, primers and mixed probes, custom DNA synthesis, and partial or total synthesis of structural genes. In 1985 it licensed worldwide marketing of cyanoethyl amidites to Biosearch (a Millipore unit), which co-developed products with it; Biosyntech also aimed at the DNA "gene machine" synthesizer market. Köster's credited inventions include inorganic DNA-synthesis supports (1972) and cyanoethyl amidites (1983).
Litigation posture. One tracked case, as plaintiff; zero as defendant. That single Delaware filing places Biosyntech alongside Millipore/Biosearch in a declaratory-judgment action against patent holder University Patents, Inc. (UPI) of Westport, Connecticut, which had separately accused Biosyntech and Biosearch of infringement and offered industry-wide sublicenses. This is the classic posture of an operating company using a DJ action against a patent-asserting licensor; the plaintiff/defendant counts do not indicate two-way litigation activity, and the venue is the District of Delaware, not a modern NPE-favored forum.
Notable case. Millipore Corp. v. University Patents, Inc., 682 F. Supp. 227 (D. Del. 1988), filed 29 August 1986. The court denied UPI's motions to dismiss and to transfer venue, finding a reasonable apprehension of suit based on UPI's sublicense offer and threat of litigation.