Campaign group Greenpeace has claimed that its expos茅 of two biotechnology companies earlier this month forced them to scrap a bid to patent pig-human 鈥渆mbryos鈥�. But the companies applying for the patent deny that they abandoned the claims to appease Greenpeace.
鈥淭he patent was abandoned before Greenpeace put out its 7 October announcement,鈥� says Julia Greenstein, chief operating officer at BioTransplant of Charlestown, Massachusetts, one of the co-applicants. 鈥淚t was not in response to the Greenpeace press release.鈥�
鈥淭his particular patent has been abandoned in all territories of the world,鈥� says a statement issued by Peter Mountford, the chief executive officer of Stem Cell Sciences in Melbourne, Australia, the other applicant. Mountford says that the two companies share Greenpeace鈥檚 opposition to patenting human embryos.
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鈥淪CS patent claims identified by Greenpeace and others as encompassing methods for human reproductive cloning or the genetic modification of humans have in one previous instance and will in any future instance be amended so as to specifically exclude this possibility,鈥� says the statement.
The statement seeks to clarify what it sees as 鈥渕isrepresentations鈥� by Greenpeace. In particular, SCS denies that it is trying to create 鈥渕ixed species embryos鈥� by the same cloning method that gave birth to Dolly the sheep.
Mountford points out that the company did merge a human cell nucleus with a pig egg emptied of its own genetic material, but questions the notion that this is an embryo. 鈥淭his process may enable the human cell nucleus to regress back to a stem cell type suitable for the development of cell-based therapies,鈥� he says.
鈥淚t was never our intention to claim patents that would cover human embryos or human reproductive cloning,鈥� adds Greenstein.
But Greenpeace refuses to accept this, and claims that its expos茅 led to the patent withdrawal. 鈥淭hese are the first biotech companies to admit having gone too far in claiming patents on human embryos,鈥� says a press release. 鈥淕reenpeace welcomes the voluntary commitment, which came after [we] exposed the patent application to the public.鈥�
鈥淎lthough this is a small step forward, such voluntary commitments will not generally stop a practice that is permitted by law,鈥� says Thomas Schweiger, Greenpeace鈥檚 genetic engineering campaigner in Hamburg, Germany. 鈥淚n a broad sense, the industry still continues to treat all life forms as patentable inventions that can be exploited for profit.鈥�
The joint patent application by BioTransplant and Stem Cell Sciences was filed at the European Patent Office in Munich on 6 May 1999.
In Britain, government-appointed experts led by the Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, recently recommended altering the law to allow the creation of cloned human embryos for research into tissue therapies. MPs will be given a free vote on the proposed legal changes this autumn.
But the Donaldson report advised that, 鈥渢he mixing of human adult cells with the live eggs of any animal species should not be permitted鈥�. The report says: 鈥淪uch a technique would raise many technical and ethical issues.鈥�
