Scientists Question U.S. Plan to Patent Genes : Biotech: Attempt to claim rights to genetic sequencing without knowing their functions receives mixed reviews at human genome talks in San Diego.
The federal government’s effort to patent hundreds of human genes before it is understood how those genes function in the human body ignited fierce criticism at a meeting of international experts Monday in San Diego, as some scientists said such a move could turn into a frantic scientific gold rush and quash cooperation among researchers.
San Diego biotech officials gave mixed reviews to the government’s action: some said the government was meddling, others said they approved.
Until recently, scientists have applied for patents after they understood a gene’s function in the human body and how it could be used for treatments. But, last June, officials with the National Institutes of Health applied for a patent that would cover the rights to 340 pieces of genetic sequencing without knowing the function of those pieces.
At the third annual human genome conference that started here Monday, scientists said the U.S. government’s action would have a chilling effect on the collaborative international effort to uncover the human genome, or the genetic blueprint for human beings.
“Indiscriminate patenting is not a good thing,” said Kenichi Matsubara, vice president of the international Human Genome Project and head of the Japanese Genome Project. “Patenting hundreds of thousands of sequences without knowing their function is destructive to cooperative efforts.”
Scientists’ 15-year, $3-billion quest to identify the human genome, or genetic blueprint, is an international endeavor, although 75% of the research is conducted in the United States. In deciphering the genome, scientists hope to be able to identify and repair defective genes--preventing diseases before symptoms occur.
U.S. government officials said Monday that they were only holding their options open and acting in the best interests of American biotech industry when they filed a patent application on the brain-tissue work of Dr. Craig Venter of the Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, which is affiliated with the NIH.
“By not filing the patent application, we ran the risk of potentially missing the boat,” said Reid Adler, director of the Office of Technology Transfer at the National Institutes of Health. “This was not an act of imperialism.”
Ivor Royston, San Diego Regional Cancer Center president and a consultant for the gene therapy company Genesys Therapeutics Corp., said he approved of the government’s action.
“As an American promoter of the U.S. biotech industry, I think this is a good idea,” he said.
But others said the government’s involvement was unnecessary.
“Look, there’s oil in Texas and we don’t know where it is,” said Ted Greene, chairman of Amylin Corp., a San Diego biotech company. “If somebody is going to buy up every bloody lease they can find, and anybody comes along and does legitimate exploration, then (that person) has to pay a toll to whoever is big and brutal enough to lock up those leases. I don’t like it.”
Under the patent law, inventions have to be novel and useful, Adler said. Federal law also requires government laboratories to identify potentially patentable developments, he said.
The patent was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, which has not yet ruled on the application.
Adler dismissed the notion that the patent application would stifle international collaboration or promote secrecy among the researchers. “When you file a patent application, you make a disclosure,” said Adler, who added that several companies had expressed interest in the American government’s ability to patent some of its findings.
Adler said he hoped the move to file a patent application would generate discussion among industry officials as well as scientists about the government’s best course in protecting industry without sacrificing science. American government officials, he said, had not yet decided whether to apply for international patents.
“It costs $100 million to bring a drug to the marketplace,” said Charles Cantor, principal scientist for the Department of Energy’s Human Genome Project. “The thinking is that, if companies don’t have protection, they would be reluctant to go ahead with drug development. . . . But, in the best of all possible worlds, these things wouldn’t be patentable.”
