Stem Cell Patent Woes

Researchers who need access to the Wisconsin stem cell lines (among the few the Bush Administration allows federally-funded researchers to use) are running into problems with the owners -- the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).

WARF, which dates from the 1920s and is the nation's oldest university-based technology transfer organization, owns Dr. James Thomson's seminal patents on deriving stem cells from human embryos. WARF is charging academic researchers $5,000 and commercial firms $100,000 to use his original lines. Moreover, most medical technologies that use stem cells will have to license the WARF patents.

But, according to the latest Technology Review, WARF is placing onerous restrictions on its licensees:

The (WARF) license for the University of California, for example, permits scientists to use only a small number of embryonic stem cell lines. And the license granted to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a nonprofit medical research organization that funds scientists across the nation, prohibits scientists from accepting funding from or collaborating with commercial companies unless the company has a commercial license from WARF. (Some companies have chosen not to take a license because of the cost.) That could make it difficult for academics to partner with companies to develop their discoveries into products or therapies.

WARF denies it stands in the way of stem cell research, pointing to the scores of licenses issued to both firms and academic researchers.