A Patent Worth This Much Is Worth Disclosing

This story comes from the latest Integrity in Science Watch, which I edit:

It was the science story of the week. Cartoonists had a field day. A compound in red wine called resveratrol keeps fattened mice healthy, and they live longer, too. Now that was something that the researchers could grab onto and rush, not into print, but first to the patent house. As stories in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post pointed out, Harvard researcher David Sinclair has developed chemical derivatives of resveratrol and started a company called Sirtris Pharmaceuticals to commercialize their use for glucose control in diabetics. Sinclair applied for a patent on the resveratrol-like substances in May of this year. However, the subsequent science article by Sinclair and colleagues, which didn't appear in Nature until last week (and triggered the media onslaught), did not reveal that fact, nor his relationship to Sirtris.

Nature also ran a cheeky essay entitled "Grapes versus gluttony" that was co-authored by University of Washington scientist Matt Kaeberlein. For the record, neither Nature nor New York Times reporter Nicholas Wade, who quoted Kaeberlein to throw some cold water on the idea that resveratrol itself is the best way to get the desired results, revealed that Kaeberlein has applied for a patent on his own version of a resveratrol-like substance. The other major player in the news accounts was Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who discovered the gene that produces the protein that triggers the desired responses in yeast. Only the Wall Street Journal reported that he is a co-founder of Elixir Pharmaceuticals, "a biotech company that competes with Sirtris." Guarante has several patents on the gene and its use. His latest patent application filed last year is entitled simply, "Method of Extending Life Span." None of the pending patents, all of which are products of government-funded research, were revealed in the news accounts.

Meanwhile, the Journal of Medical Ethics, last week published a study by the advocacy group GeneWatch UK that analyzed Nature's patent disclosures in a sampling of articles published over a six-month period last year. Two-thirds of the articles did not disclose that their authors had either outstanding patents or connections to the biotech industry. The study called for journals to impose sanctions on authors who fail to disclose conflicts of interest and suggested "universities and institutes establish a public register of scientists' interests."