(no subject)

[brynndragon]

I just realized another side of the stem cell research (SCR) thing that makes me really pissed off: patents.

The current state of affairs is that stem cell research is happening and is privately funded. Sure, some portion of that is charity donation, but another chunk of it is venture capital or side projects in large pharma corps. Furthermore, since nothing bought with public funding can be used for SCR, it's really hard for someone who gets a lot of public funding (i.e. non-profit academic institutions) to, say, separate out the bill for lab space or pipettes or other common lab equipment. They have to spend the money to buy all new stuff and all new space just for SCR, *and* show that they're not paying for the water, electricity, etc used for SCR with public funds. That's pretty damn unlikely to occur - only places like Harvard are rich enough to be capable of doing that. So the vast majority of organizations that are doing it are for-profits.

Which leads to the obvious question: where's the profit? The long-term answers are obvious (I'm sure a cure for Parkinson's would make many someones very rich), but what about the short term? The way to make money is to patent everything they find about how to use stem cells for research and how to work on stem-cell-based treatment and license it out to others. They'll probably patent the stem cells and any cell lines they make from stem cells as well - if you think they'll end up in the ATCC bank, you're kidding yourself. These are the same people who have patented 20% of the human genome, they're not going to pass up the opportunity to be *the* owners of embryonic stem cell lines.

The next time someone talks about baby farming and/or calls SCR murder, find out who is lining their re-election coffers. I bet you'll see some big pharma names in there. . .

Comments

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

That is a good point, and it shows another reason lack of public funds hurts us in the long-run. Scientists who work at non-profits are in it for the prestige, and thus are far more likely to look for actual cures (as well as go out on a limb and do the more radical experiments with a higher chance of no useful information, but a much greater benefit if there is success). In turn, that would pressure the pharmas into looking for cures, because a treatment is worthless if there's a cure.

[damhan-alluidh.livejournal.com]

Fewer and fewer people are staying in academia though.
Prestige... or money?
A higher ideal, such as contributing to the sum of humn knowledge... or patents?

[(Anonymous)]

Academic scientists also have to publish their findings to the whole wide world if they want any credit.

Industry scientists have every incentive to keep their findings quiet.