« post valentines day - looking for some sin? | Main | are trademark attorneys bullies? »

February 15, 2005

cambia pushes for "open source" biotechnology innovation

from Bio-IT World:

CAMBIA, an independent, nonprofit institute based in Canberra, Australia, has set up BIOS (Biological Innovation for Open Society), which aims to extend the concepts of open source to biotechnology and other forms of innovation in biology. Last week CAMBIA introduced under an open source license biotechnology tool kits that it developed. The technologies include TransBacter, a new method for transferring genes to plants, developed as an alternative to Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, and GUSPlus, a new reporter gene for use in molecular biology.

The problem I see is that biotechnology and biotech products are not like open source software code that can be duplicated, manipulated and changed at whim by anyone with some training and a computer.  Biotechnology research requires a laboratory, research tools (microscopes, pippettes etc.) and significant regulation and compliance resources.  None of these items are free or even within the range of being “affordable” for most start ups or small biotechnology companies that are not funded or capitalized. 

As biotechnology is an inherently unpredictable field or “art” — start up biotech companies are able to attract funding and/or capital, in some cases, only because they are able to hedge such unpredictability by using patents to wall off a protected commercial market for the product IF and WHEN it is ever approved.  Rather than increasing the number of companies in this area, such an open source biotechnology strategy would appear to stifle investment and put a company at a significant disadvantage.

Any thoughts?



Digg!


Posted by Douglas Sorocco at 05:54 PM.
Permalink: cambia pushes for "open source" biotechnology innovation
| Comments (1) | Sphere: Related Content

Comments

Hmm...

Well actually your right, but I think there is a signifigant risk in terms of leveraging the pure resource discourse against OS like licences.

There is hidden benefit for any sort of government in terms of medical/research and quazi legal costs. (not to mention moral equity) by maintaining living organisms to be blanket offlimits to patents (at the least). In terms of inital inovation incentive you are falling pray to the old (and mostly incorect) that no one will invest in somthing that won't give it a competitive advantage in terms of IP...

Posted by: Joel W at February 17, 2005 05:49 AM