Say you had spent twenty-odd years grubbing around in the soils on a
tropical island hunting for microbial fungi that produce a whole bunch of
antibiotic compounds, or maybe you have a penchant for extracting natural
products from trees. You may even have spotted a herbalist in an exotic
location working with some rare plant with medicinal powers. Or, you could
have sequenced a rare gene from some tribal forest dweller whose relatives
happen to suffer a particularly rare disease that mimics a common Western
one, writes David Bradley.
The commercial side of your brain immediately spots an opportunity ...What
do you do? The fundamental scientist in you recognises the bountiful wealth
of information that you have brought to light...but the commercial side of
your brain immediately spots an opportunity to step off the
grant-application treadmill with a multimillion dollar biotech deal and a
lucrative share offer. What do you do?
Well you may already be thinking of the secrecy clauses for the CEO's
contract but there are several considerations that may influence the
decision. That tropical island was not a desert island and those trees are
in someone else's rainforest, while those arboreal inhabitants must surely
have some personal claim on their own genes.
Patenting Nature's bounties
Attempts to patent and commercialise the fruits, figuratively speaking, of
the developing world, those natural pesticides, revitalising potions and
grubby microbes, have been causing a major headache for those who take their
ethical dilemmas seriously. Meanwhile, the potential for boosting the
indigenous governments' coffers has not gone unnoticed and now upfront
return on their countries' resources are being demanded. Cash would be nice
but a return in kind might suffice, especially if the added value provided
by Western science is enough to turn what might be a 'primitive' remedy into
a fully functioning, safe and more effective antimalarial, for instance.
The need for Neem
The case of a modest but variously useful tree, native to India, the neem (Azadirachta
indica, aka the Indian lilac) became a symbol for those hoping to end the
plundering of biological resources and the folk wisdom of developing
countries. The neem had been used for centuries because of its pesticidal
properties but when seed company W.R. Grace took out a patent to exploit its
properties in commercial agriculture there was fury from hundreds of
organisations in 35 countries who set about challenging the patent's
validity in the US. The Foundation for Economic Trends, (Washington DC)
believed the patent was irrational because the pesticide was not an
invention of W.R. Grace and had existed in prior art for centuries; with the
neem serving not only as a source of natural pesticide but feed for
livestock and as a fuel. If the patent, which was for a processing technique
were strictly applied, traditional uses would diminish as the extracts were
shipped overseas together with the profits. The bid to have the patent
overturned failed but the campaigners are still active in trying to persuade
farmers and others not to use products derived from the neem, while, several
Indian companies have sprung up to sell neem products to the rest of the
world.
The Wormwood that turned
Artemisinin, or qinghaosu, too has become something of a cause célèbre in
the debate over exploitation of diversity in the developing world. The
material is a crude extract from wormwood, Artemisia annua and was used many
years BC by Chinese apothecaries for treating all kinds of disease, not
least the fever now associated with malaria. Derivatives of the active
ingredient have proved very effective in treating the disease but again the
commercialisation of the material as an antimalarial drug throws up problems
for the patent officers. Qinghaosu, after all, has a couple of millennia in
prior art for multiple uses. Compromise is always hoped for but the
development of efficacious derivatives of the active ingredient will not
necessarily allow resources to be ploughed back into the Orient.
The Human genome
One of the most contentious cases of patenting natural resources is that of
the Hagahai tribe of Papua New Guinea. The people have a blood cell line
that is infected with a leukaemia-causing virus. The cell line could lead to
a potential cure for the cancer and so has obvious medical potential, which
was spotted by scientists at the National Institutes of Health in the US.
The NIH patented the genetic material from the people to massive public
outcry and the arguments still rage over who owns what when it comes to the
human genome.
There is another side to the story though...there are thankfully a few who
share the middle ground. These are the advocates of an international social
system that does not consider the West and the RoW to be distinct entities
but two parts of a greater whole. They believe that the West by utilising
rather than plundering RoW resources might feel happy with providing the
developing world with some of its home-grown technology rather more freely
than current practice allows.
Compulsory licensing of medical technology
One method through which this might be possible, which, with present
attitudes, is not such a soft compromise, is to work towards the compulsory
licensing of medical essentials, such as AIDS drugs, other pharmaceuticals
crucial to a country's health and certain medical devices so that they can
be more widely available in Africa, for instance.
Pharmaceutical companies sit on drugs for which they hold patents. James
Love, Director of the Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, DC has
set up a web site to bring the issues surrounding compulsory licensing of
medical technology to light. The basic problem boils down to the fact that
it is simply unfair, for want of a better word, for pharmaceutical companies
to sit on — 'failing to exploit', in the ironic parlance of the patent
lawyer — important drugs on which they hold patents for purely commercial
reasons. Many of these dormant patents could benefit many people, having
successfully completed trials and gone through all the regulatory
procedures. There are countless perfectly useful drugs in pharmaceutical
company files that are not now in production but that no one else will be
able to use until their patents expire, which could be up to twenty years
away. The stronger arguments for compulsory licensing continue along the
lines that not only is it basically unjust but that it is probably illegal
under several international agreements that go as far back as The Paris
Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property of 20th March 1883!
Compulsory licensing would not bring the companies billion-dollar drugs but
that is not the point. We are considering the impact more freely available
drugs might have on the developing world at a time when campaigners are
calling for the cancellation of international debt in those countries as a
gesture for the new millennium. A coordinated effort on the part of
campaigners, governments and the pharmaceutical companies putting pressure
on each other will eventually yield a positive outcome that could benefit
them even more than simply wiping their financial slate clean.
Natural payback
There has to be a balance. Without the countless natural products and the
powerful folklore of the developing world many of the pharmaceuticals we
take for granted today would never have been developed. With compulsory
licensing, which need not be as militantly enforced as the phrase would
suggest there could be an opportunity for payback for decades of what, to
put it less than gently, amounts to biopiracy, according to some. Science
can do a lot better than plundering the rainforests and must give something
back. That way shareholders, scientists and even those whose ancestors have
yielded the potential solutions to many of the world's medicinal,
agricultural and other problems will all benefit.
This article originally appeared in the original Alchemist on
ChemWeb.com back in the day.