A joint letter from twelve organisations sent to investors in companies filing patents on genetically engineered chimpanzees was published today. Companies filing patents on genetically engineered great apes include Altor BioScience (US), Bionomics (Australia) and Intrexon (US). Research conducted at the European Patent Office in Munich shows that five patents claiming genetically engineered great apes have already been granted to some of these companies, and a dozen further patent applications have been filed.