Patent holder may sap rewards of stem-cell study

[Leif]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...n/14258579.htm

Posted on Tue, Apr. 04, 2006

Patent holder may sap rewards of stem-cell study

WISCONSIN FOUNDATION ADDS NEW WRINKLE TO LONG-DELAYED CALIFORNIA INITIATIVE

Mercury News Editorial


Sadly, 16 months after California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 71 authorizing $3 billion for stem-cell research, scientists still are waiting to get their hands on the precious research dollars.

Just as the state appears on the verge of clearing the decks of a nettlesome oversight lawsuit and inching ever closer to dispersing research grants, yet another potentially irritating delay is emerging.
Elizabeth Donley, general counsel for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), told California stem-cell researchers at a major conference recently that WARF will demand a significant chunk of royalties from any of California's efforts.

The Wisconsin foundation, which is affiliated with the University of Wisconsin, announced at the conference that it holds two patents with extraordinarily broad claims to the use of embryonic stem cells until the year 2015, and that it intends to enforce the patents.

Carl Gulbrandsen, executive director of WARF, told the Wisconsin State Journal last week that ``I'm not embarrassed at all to say that I hope the University of Wisconsin will make a whole lot of money from these patents.'' The journal Science reported that WARF typically charges as much as $125,000 for a commercial license with a $40,000 annual maintenance fee.

A lot more than money is riding on California's stem-cell effort. Millions are hoping that the promising research will lead to cures from everything from heart disease to diabetes.

It's one thing for WARF to seek to benefit from sharing the process that pioneering scientist James Thompson of the University of Wisconsin developed for deriving embryonic stem cells. But Wisconsin also has a patent for embryonic stem cells, themselves. Scientists should have as much claim to patent embryonic stem cells as they do to laying claims on laws of nature. Namely, zero.

California voters passed Proposition 71 in large part to speed the process of stem-cell research. It's long past time that California scientists were allowed to start dipping into the $3 billion treasure chest and begin uncovering cures to some of the world's most devastating diseases.