Biology Goes Open Source

cford writes "According to Forbes some of the drug company giants are finally realizing that their genetic research is worth more if they give it away. 'Novartis, the Basel, Switzerland, drug giant, has helped uncover which of the 20,000 genes identified by the Human Genome Project are likely to be associated with diabetes. But rather than hoard this information, as drug firms have traditionally done, it is making it available for free on the World Wide Web. "It will take the entire world to interpret these data," says Novartis research head Mark Fishman. "We figure we will benefit more by having a lot of companies look at these data than by holding it secret."'"

Comments

Biological Stallman

[shawn443]

But another requirement of making the leap from genes to drugs is making the research public--a step that will make it difficult for researchers elsewhere to patent any of this raw genetic information. The only thing I hate worse than software patents are genetic patents. If any industries could use a Stallman it would be biotech and genetic.

Mainly a good PR move . . .

[cashman73]

It's not like Novartis has made their entire drug database public with all of their notes regarding which drugs they're interested in pursuing or not,... They've done some significant analysis into the diabetes gene, and rather than withholding it, they're making it public. There's no real compelling reason to protect this aspect of the research, so why not? The benefits of releasing it outweigh the negatives:

• They still get to do their own research and develop their own drugs to target specific genes in this area.
• They get huge kudos in the PR arena for their attempts at finding a cure for cancer diabetes. They can use this in advertising campaigns.
• As researchers in other pharmaceutical companies and/or academia use this information, they'll eventually write grants and use it in their research. Novartis will still get the advantage from them citing the source,... Again, see the above advertising part,...

A step in the right direction

[nickv111]

Patents on the medical and biological industry, while potentially good for the companies, are truly terrible for the rest of the world. The last thing we need is more expensive medicine, and having biological trade secrets released will help humanity as a whole.

I've done a little research on AIDS, for example, and to give you an example of what patents do for the cost of medicine, take a look at this quote from the New York Times article, "Look at Brazil."

"Until a year ago, the triple therapy that has made AIDS a manageable disease in wealthy nations was considered realistic only for those who could afford to pay $10,000 to $15,000 a year or lived in societies that could."

In developing countries, the cost of patented medication is the reason why many families cannot afford it and so many suffer from it. Now look at another quote from the same article:

"Brazil now produces some triple therapy for $3,000 a year and expects to do much better, and the price could potentially drop to $700 a year or even less."

Many countries cannot do this for fear of economic sanctions, which means the next logical step would be for companies to open up their medical and biological information, for the good of humanity. Not only will this help potential consumers of this medication, but also provide a base for other companies to build on to excel each other's knowledge.

Re:What do you know

[MightyMartian]

While I applaud the company, the notion that the human genome or any part of it is anyone's to keep, license or give away is appalling.