Cambridge
BIOPROSPECTING. Yeah, you remember, there was a lot about it in the early
1990s鈥攖hat deal between Costa Rica and the pharmaceuticals giant
Merck鈥攈ow did it go again? Something about drugs companies rummaging
through flora and fauna looking for that elusive 鈥渂ig find鈥濃�攖hat bit of
plant or fungus that would provide researchers with the cure for cancer and give
developing countries a nice little earner.
In those days you couldn鈥檛 open a scientific journal without reading about
some research institute, corporation or conservation agency instituting a new
collection programme. Funnily enough, we haven鈥檛 heard much about these ventures
lately. What ever happened to bioprospecting? Or to the material that was
collected? And come to think of it, who was going to profit from it and how? The
halcyon days of bioprospecting are, it seems, drawing to a close. There is
growing disenchantment in supplying countries with its much vaunted promises,
and nations such as Ecuador and the Philippines have passed laws to regulate
it. The supplier countries remain unconvinced that the nominal cash fee
that they receive for each sample, some $20 and a promise of future
royalties of between 1 and 2 per cent of net profits, constitute adequate
recompense. Pharmaceuticals companies argue that only a small percentage of
collected samples will form the basis of patentable and marketable products.
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For some, dissatisfaction stems from a suspicion that such agreements bear
the mark of a new bioimperialism. Others are frustrated by delays in receiving
compensation. It is a combination of these concerns, which, according to a UN
Development Programme report, has provoked a group of Pacific island
organisations to call for a moratorium on all bioprospecting in the
Pacific鈥攖o have the region declared a 鈥渓ife forms patent-free zone鈥�.
The Biodiversity Convention demands that suppliers be given a 鈥渏ust and
equitable鈥� share of the benefits arising from the use of such materials. But
whether they will receive fair compensation or not will depend of the fate of
these collections. Much of the material collected under bioprospecting
programmes is stored by companies or institutes in large repositories.
The US National Institutes of Health, for instance, has a collection of some
50 000 samples of plant, microbial and marine material from which 114 000
extracts have been refined. This collection, taken from more than 30 tropical
countries, is stored in 41 walk-in freezers in the NIH鈥檚 Natural Products
Repository in Maryland. Merck鈥檚 collection is said to rival that of the NIH. The
genetic and biochemical information embodied in these samples can now be
extracted, modified, replicated or combined and, with techniques such as plant
cell culture, combinatorial chemistry and cell cloning, used to produce more of
the original resource as well as other products.
In this sense, genetic and biochemical material has become an informational
resource, which, like other types of informational resources, such as computer
software, videos and recorded music, can be used repeatedly without diminution.
As we know, once ownership of a computer program, song or moving image is
secured, a continuing return can be generated from selling access to that
information. The same is now true for samples of genetic and biochemical
material.
Organisations from the corporate subsidiaries of publicly funded
universities, such as the University of Strathclyde鈥檚 Drug Research Institute,
to small independent companies, such as the New York-based Knowledge Recovery
Foundation International, have been quick to capitalise on this realisation.
Both intend to rent out samples from their 鈥渓ibraries鈥� of living plant tissue
and biochemical extracts. Each operates on the premise that because clients are
searching for different types of genetic or biochemical information, samples can
be screened repeatedly before becoming exhausted. Brokerages also act as
clearing houses for the sale and resale of collections jettisoned by academic
laboratories or asset-stripped from failing biotech companies.
It has been argued that supplying countries will benefit from this trade by
receiving a percentage royalty for each use or sale. For this to be the case,
however, we need to establish protocols capable of tracking multiple
transactions involving a resource which is inherently fluid, mutable and
dynamic. Despite the NIH鈥檚 well-intentioned efforts, this is simply implausible.
For as Nintendo discovered recently with its games software, it is all but
impossible to prevent unlicensed sampling of desirable bits of the game.
The future value of these collections remains to be seen. Researchers may
find that they have almost infinite use. Or the collections may prove to be
worthless. However, as discussion turns to new techniques such as taking the
鈥渃assette鈥� of genes out of slow-growing Pacific yew trees, putting them into
rapidly growing Escherichia coli and fermenting it, one thing is clear.
The difficulties of designing socially just protocols to govern successive uses
of genetic and biochemical information can only become more acute as the
problems of establishing the provenance of such material increase. As this
material sits in cryogenic storage awaiting its second coming, the suppliers and
the agreements recede further into the past.
By the time the material is eventually used, what record will there be of
where it was collected or to whom compensation should be paid? Who will take
responsibility for ensuring that any compensation finds its way back to those
entitled to a 鈥渏ust and equitable鈥� share of the benefits?