The competition's plans.
J. Craig Venter, who set up and runs TIGR, had always made a point of making his
discoveries public. White said the new arrangement, which may result in a new
company, would not affect that.
"We are going to put all the data into the public domain," he said, but added: "There is a
difference between raw data being provided to the scientific community and the higher
order data that we will be providing to our subscribers."
The information will be formatted and available on a fee basis. For example, as the
researchers find which gene does what and how that data could be used to predict
susceptibility to a genetic disease, that information will be sold.
"This is not a philanthropic effort," White said. "We are a public company and we have
to get a return for our shareholders."
The National Institutes of Health, which are coordinating the Human Genome Project,
welcomed the news. "This will help us get to our goal a little sooner, and that is good
news," Dr. Francis Collins, who directs the NIH National Genetic Research Institute, told
the Wall Street Journal.
The new collaboration will compete somewhat with Human Genome Sciences Inc.
<HGSI.O>, also of Maryland, Incyte <INCY.O> and Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc
<MLNM.O>.
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