Here is the full text of WSJ editorial by Venter that appeared in today's edition:
Clinton and Blair Shouldn't
Destroy Our Research
By J. Craig Venter, a founder and president of Celera Genomics.
When President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently
encouraged all genomics researchers to make their raw genetic data freely
available immediately, their timing and intent puzzled us. On the face of it,
they seemed to be simply restating the existing National Institutes of Health
policy that requires publicly funded genome labs to release their findings
nightly.
Yet if there is not much new here, why have we witnessed some of the
biggest losses in the history of Nasdaq Stock Market, with more than $30
billion lost by 10 companies in the genomics sector alone? And why was
the president encouraged to issue a statement that would have such a
negative impact on the promising industries of biotechnology and
genomics?
I think the simple answer is confusion.
Confusion in part about Celera's business
model, confusion about why the U.S.
government is competing with a small company
on decoding the human genome and confusion
about how the public will best benefit from the
genomics revolution. Here's a clarification of
these issues:
In May 1998 we founded Celera Genomics, a
company whose goal was to become the
definitive source of genomic and related
biological information. To accomplish this goal, we are using new methods
and technology to complete the sequencing of the human genome this year,
years ahead of the scheduled completion of the publicly funded Human
Genome Project.
This Friday one of Celera's first milestones will be met when we publish the
sequence of the fruit-fly genome -- the largest genome published to date --
in Science magazine. This project took less than 10 months to complete
and has demonstrated that Celera's strategy works. It was undertaken in
collaboration with public researchers at Berkeley Drosophila Genome
Project and has been a wonderful success.
Celera stated from its formation that it would publish the human genome
sequence when it was complete. We still intend to do so.
How does Celera make money if it gives the human genome sequence
away free? Celera's business model, unlike other genomic firms, is not
based on secrecy and patents. Rather, as an information company, we aim
to disseminate scientific information broadly in a user-friendly form. Celera
is developing state-of-the-art software tools that make analyzing this
enormous volume of genomic data easier for our subscribers. This is not a
new business model; Bloomberg, Dow Jones Interactive and Lexis-Nexis
are existing examples. Much of the information in these databases is in the
public domain, but subscribers choose to pay for the software and
data-mining capabilities.
Celera has created one of the largest civilian computing facilities in the
world and has brought together some of the greatest minds to develop
ways to interpret this vast amount of genomic information. Celera's
database of 60 trillion bytes represents more than five times the information
content of the Library of Congress. This is why large pharmaceutical and
biotechnology companies have chosen to subscribe to our databases.
We are now entering the next phase of our business model, with upcoming
announcements of database subscriptions with academic institutions and
biotechnology companies. After that phase, our hope is to offer services to
physicians and eventually to the public.
Celera has always been willing to collaborate with public researchers, but
this can't mean sacrificing the investment of our shareholders. This is why in
our negotiations with the public Human Genome Project we have insisted
on protection from other genomic information companies that would
repackage and sell our data. We think this is a fair proposal, since we have
invested hundreds of millions of dollars to create Celera and sequence the
genome. There is nothing sinister about this notion. It is plain
entrepreneurship coupled with good corporate citizenry.
It would be wonderful to think that by simply putting the human genome
sequence data on the Internet, diseases would become immediately
treatable. The reality is that advances in medicine will be possible only with
substantial investment from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
The first step in this process is the investment Celera has made, putting this
huge amount of genomic data into usable form. The next step is in the
creation of new therapeutics. It should be clear that new pharmaceuticals
won't be developed without patent protection. Our belief is that patents on
genes as targets for pharmaceutical development need to be broadly and
nonexclusively licensed to encourage development.
Investors and the public were beginning to recognize the potential that
genomics holds. If I were a pessimist I would say that with one short
statement this research could be delayed for all of us. But I don't think that
will happen. Celera is already moving beyond the sequence to understand
that information through our initiatives in proteomics, functional genomics
and individualized medicine.
The only race that Celera has ever been engaged in is the race to the
starting line so that the real research and discovery can begin. There are
still centuries of work to be done in this field, and Celera intends to be at
the forefront. |
