Monday, September 24, 2001

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"Intellectual property is the lifeline of the biomedical sciences industry and Asia will have to embrace the concept to move forward, experts said on Friday.

"Intellectual property rights for medicine is the foundation upon which drug research is built," Klaus Leisinger, executive director of the Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development, told the BioMedical Asia 2001 conference in Singapore."

redux [08.30.01]
BioMedNet Chinese president meets with Human Genome Project scientists
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"Chinese President Jiang Zemin met with scientists participating in the Human Genome Project on Tuesday. He praised the project, saying genomic information should be "owned by all, done by all and shared by all." Full text: Chinese President Jiang Zemin met with scientists participating in the Human Genome Project on Tuesday. He praised the project, saying genomic information should be "owned by all, done by all and shared by all." The HGP is "of utmost importance" for people to learn more about themselves and advance life development, he said.

The Chinese government has always supported the project because it concerned human progress, Jiang said, adding China was thrilled to make its contributions to the project. HGP scientists in turn commended Chinese scientists for completing China's HGP assignment ahead of schedule.

HGP's general coordinator Francis Collins said that China has a crucial role in the HGP and that he hopes the international cooperation shared in the human genomics field will continue.

Reference: People's Daily, 29 August 2001"

redux [07.14.01]
Science Celera human genome data not Wellcome
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"In this policy forum, Cook-Deegan and McCormack urge that DNA sequence information contained in patents be made publicly available soon after patent applications are filed. This will speed access to valuable data without undermining investment in subsequent development of DNA-based inventions. The authors further suggest that federal agencies and nonprofit funds consider adopting this policy as a condition of accepting their funders; private firms could adopt it as a norm to reduce duplication of effort and to accelerate innovation."

redux [02.27.01]
The Financial Times Opinion: No price should be placed on the book of life

"Let me be frank here: my view is, and always has been, that the information in the genome is our genetic heritage and should not be profited from directly. It is not for sale. This is a pro partnership, not an anti-business, stance. We want to ensure that the entire world has equal access to the data, so that the potential health benefits are reaped by the many, rather than the few.

As Prime Minister Blair said: "The knowledge contained in the map of the human genome has the power to touch the lives of everyone on the planet." It is for precisely this reason that our commitment should be for the entire world to use this data so the benefits can be realised by all, and major killers such as malaria, tuberculosis, river blindness and leprosy will not be neglected."

The Economist Science and profit

"ONCE upon a time, pure and applied science were the same. Sir Humphry Davy discovered seven chemical elements, and invented the miner's safety lamp. Louis Pasteur investigated the properties of molecules, and worked out how to stop milk spoiling. Everybody thought that was admirable. Somehow, things have changed. Today the feeling is widespread that science and commerce should not - must not - mix. There is a queasy suspicion that the process of discovery is in some way corrupted if it is driven by profit."

"Far from compromising science, profit in both these cases - the development of new medicines and the elucidation of the genome - has animated it, and directed it towards meeting pressing human needs. It is a happy marriage. Davy and Pasteur would surely have approved."