Genome Envy
The war against medical progress.

By Robert Goldberg, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis
February 16, 2001 10:05 a.m.

ccording to a report in Reuters, "scientists exploring the human genome were surprised to find a human has only twice

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as many genes as a worm." But anyone following the efforts of certain members of Congress such as Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), Rep. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and so-called consumer advocates to destroy the role of the private sector in medical research could have told you that. The long knives are out to cut drug prices or give the government the power to confiscate patents for any drug developed with any government research support and hand it over to a generic drug company for cheap production. Since any researcher or research institute worth mentioning received NIH support and collaborates with private industry, such proposals are designed to nationalize the biopharmaceutical industry in America and do to medical progress what California has done to electric power.

Celera, the private company that was first to sequence the human genome is now at the center of what will be a complete transformation in the way disease is identified and treated and the method in which drugs are designed and developed. Most of this change will be financed and carried out by a combination of drug companies, biotech firms and start-ups that specialize in marking, tagging, cataloging and annotating which genes produce what proteins. And of this writing at least, companies and researchers will pay to search Celera's well-organized library of gene sequences than to hunt through the mounds of data they can get for free from the government run Human Genome Project. The fact is, the most exciting and medically valuable research — both basic and applied — is being financed and carried out in the private sector.

Celera's triumph — it completed it sequencing of the genome in three years with fewer people than did the federally funded venture — is no fluke. Commercialization of medical science is now more critical to medical progress and human health than it was when mass production of penicillin was required to make antibiotic therapy a standard part of medical practice 50 years ago.

A recent article in Science magazine opined that "the best research and teaching are done in an environment that minimizes extrinsic inducements and nurtures free inquiry and broad dissemination of information." Lofty sentiments but largely untrue. The fact is, the best science and discovery, as a study by MIT professors Ian Cockburn and Rebecca Henderson shows, combines financial incentives with intellectual ones. Firms that want to develop the best drugs must also invest in the best discovery research and sustain a vibrant scientific community. When Cockburn and Henderson studied the National Institutes of Health (NIH) contribution to private firms they concluded that it was indirect and led to companies making bigger investments in "in-house basic research" in tandem with public sector supported efforts. Private investment and inquiry are not mutually exclusive, they are inseparable.

Those who support turning drug discovery into the equivalent of the California power industry argue that it is the National Institutes of Health which did the hard work of discovering and synthesizing the AIDS drug AZT for example. But if

“The fact is, the most exciting and medically valuable research — both basic and applied — is being financed and carried out in the private sector.”

that's the case, the NIH could have commanded a princely sum for licenses or simply paid a company to make the stuff at cost. It didn't because testing and developing something that works in a test tube to see if it works in humans is risky and expensive. Producing it safely and then seeing how many other applications there are for the product, and funding the next generation of drugs all cost money as well. All steps in the process ignored by the haters of medical progress. Moreover, beyond AZT and Taxol there are few products "invented" by NIH. But opponents of private sector medical progress claiming the government has the right to seize patents because if a company used NIH research or a tax break than the government is a party to its success.

And success is the key word. You don't hear a word about failures. Which why you hear the complaints mounting about Celera building its "empire," (which has yet to turn a profit) on federally funded genomic research. But many other individuals tried to do what Celera did with genomics and failed. No one is going after them. Indeed, Celera's approach to sequencing was dismissed as a joke by the NIH genome people.

So, too, with many other innovative scientists who took their science into the private sector where — unlike government — they don't have to add innovation as a criteria to grant applications because it's what the market hungers for. Take Dr. Judah Folkman's work on angiogenesis in cancer (using drugs that shrinks the blood vessels that feed tumors). Folkman's work received a few hundred thousand dollars of NIH funding over the past 30 years. When his research began to bear fruit and he needed to do larger experiments, the NIH balked. Folkman turned to the private sector. By the time the NIH made angiogenesis-based cancer drugs a national priority, the private sector $4 billion had been invested in the research and development angiogenesis-based medicines, making this one of the most heavily funded areas of medical research in human history. Should companies be taxed and price controlled because they risked billions on ideas the NIH thought were akin to cold-water fusion experiments?

Angiogenesis is likely to become a growth industry (no pun intended) thanks to genomics. A company called Regeneron is using its genomics database to discover a second family of angiogenic growth factors called angiopoietins and received patents for members of this family. Regeneron scientists did collaborate with some university reseasrchers who might have received some NIH support So their angiogenesis patents would be ripe for government seizure if the drugs they develop become really successful. Celera and other genomics companies should be lauded for building a platform for the next medical revolution so quickly. Now is the time to build public and political support for their mission lest the forces blinded by the hatred of their success and potential profit nationalize it and tear it down.