Monsanto en Syngenta claimen markergenen met antibiotica
Monsanto heeft voor de Verenigde Staten patent gekregen op markergenen met antibiotica-resistentie. Het patent met nummer 6,174,724 is een patent op alle praktische methodes waarbij antibiotica resistente markergenen worden gebruikt. Markergenen worden gebruikt om te controleren welke van de honderden manipulatie-pogingen gelukt zijn; als de gemanipuleerde cellen een behandeling met antibiotica overleven, dan is het antibiotica resistentie-gen ingebouwd en is het waarschijnlijk dat het gewenste gen ook is ingebouwd.
In Nederland worden gewassen met antibiotica resistentie sterk beperkt toegelaten, omdat het mogelijk wordt geacht dat de resistentie overgenomen wordt door micro-organisme, waaronder mogelijke ziekten die we willen bestrijden met antibiotica.
Of u dit bericht positief of negatief wilt interpreteren hangt van uw positie af. Voor de wetenschappelijke ontwikkeling is het ongunstig, omdat dit soort markergenen breed gebruikt worden. Als je het leuk vind dat gentechnologen elkaar de voet dwars zetten, is het goed nieuws. Als je het vervelend vind dat multinationals het patent als machtmiddel misbruiken, is het slecht nieuws.
In het RAFI persbericht dat u onderaan deze pagina aantreft ziet u dat het niet de eerste keer is dat Monsanto haar concurrentie met patenten te lijf gaat. Volgens waarnemers heeft AgrEvo de ontwikkeling van herbicide tolerante soja gestopt toen Monsanto patent kreeg op de promotor CaMV 35S. Een promotor maakt ook deel van genetische manipulaties; een promotor bepaalt wanneer een gen wordt afgelezen en is dus heel belangrijk voor het tot expressie komen van een gen.
Er zijn trouwens markergenen beschikbaar die niet werken met antibiotica resistentie, waarvan de 'Positech' methode nu door Syngenta naar voren wordt geschoven (zie het RAFI persbericht hieronder) als alternatief. Dit alternatief houdt in dat onafhankelijke onderzoekers die deze methode gebruiker de resultaten niet mogen delen met derden, en dat Syngenta de eerste rechten geeft op resultaten. De onafhankelijke onderzoekers werken dan in feite voor Syngenta. Gezien de ervaringen met Monsanto zal Monsanto een dergelijke constructie ook toepassen op het patent op antibiotica resistente markergenen.
Machtsconcentratie
Met de brede patenten op basistechnieken uit de genetica krijgt een handjevol
gen-giganten het recht om te bepalen wie toegang krijgt tot wetenschap, en tegen
welke prijs.
RAFI somt nog even op hoe beperkt de gentech wereld eigenlijk is:
* Er zijn 5 agro-gentech-giganten: Pharmacia (Monsanto), DuPont, Syngenta,
Aventis, Dow.
* 4 gewassen bepalen 100% van de commercieel verbouwde gentech gewassen: soja,
mais, katoen en koolzaad.
* 3 landen (de VS, Argentinie en Canada) verbouwen 98% van de oppervlakte met
gentech gewassen.
* 2 vormen van genetische manipulatie voeren de boventoon: herbicide tolerantie
en insecten tolerantie met Bt.. Er staat vrijwel geen andere vorm van genetische
manipulatie op de 44.2 miljoen hectare met gentech gewassen.
* 2 patenten die in bezit zijn van Monsanto en Syngenta controleren de huidige
beschikbare markergen technieken- een basistechniek nodig voor het ontwikkelen
van gentech gewassen.
* De Gentech zaadtechnologie van Monsanto is betrokken bij 94% van de totale
wereldoppervlakte met commerciele gentech gewassen.
-----
Persbericht
From: "Biotech Activists" <biotech_activists@iatp.org>
Subject: Monsanto's "Submarine Patent" Torpedoes Ag Biotech
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 18:38:12 -0500
RAFI
Rural Advancement Foundation International
www.rafi.org | rafi@rafi.org
News Release - 27 April 2001
Monsanto's "Submarine Patent" Torpedoes Ag Biotech
Monsanto & Syngenta Monopolize Key Gene Marker Technologies
Note: RAFI's concern about monopolization of gene marker systems and
other basic research tools should not be interpreted as support for the
technology or for genetic engineering. RAFI is not fundamentally opposed
to biotechnology, but we have profound concerns about the way it is
being foisted upon the world. In the current social, economic and
political context, genetic engineering is not safe, and involves
unacceptable levels of risk to people and the environment. For RAFI, the
fundamental issue is control. Monopolistic control of marker gene
systems, as discussed below, illustrates how a handful of Gene Giants
are using intellectual property as a powerful market tool to stifle
innovation, shackle public sector research and foster ever-increasing
industry consolidation.
A new US patent, awarded to Monsanto on 16 January 2001, has blind-sided
biotech scientists and threatens to knee-cap public sector research
because it gives Monsanto exclusive monopoly rights on a crucial method
of identifying modified plant cells in the laboratory.
US Patent No. 6,174,724 covers all practical methods of making
transformed plants that employ antibiotic resistance markers. The
technique, though controversial, has been used in virtually all
commercial GM crops. The patent is valid only in the United States.
"The technique is so widely used that it could be a nightmare for
biotech researchers," says Hope Shand, Research Director of RAFI, "It's
as if Monsanto had just patented the yellow pages as a method for
finding a telephone number. A technique that everyone thought was in
the public domain is now the exclusive property of Monsanto - and the
only practical alternative is patented by Syngenta."
"It appears to be just another nail in the coffin of public sector
researchers' ability to produce transgenic plants with freedom to
operate," observes Gary Toenniessen, Director of Food Security for the
Rockefeller Foundation.
Monsanto's controversial patent, "Chimeric genes suitable for expression
in plant cells," is described by patent experts as a particularly
sinister "submarine patent." The term refers to a patent claim on
a
technology that is already widely used by competitors. When the surprise
monopoly surfaces, the patent holder is positioned to demand licensing
fees and royalties from its competitors - or to deny access to the
technology altogether. It's not the first time that Mighty Monsanto has
torpedoed its competition. For example, industry analysts speculate that
AgrEvo's herbicide tolerant soybean program was stopped dead in the
water after Monsanto's CaMV 35S promoter patent issued.
Monsanto originally applied for its patent on antibiotic resistance
markers in 1983; a series of delays kept the patent under wraps until it
surfaced recently without warning - long since the technology has been
routinely used by researchers around the world.1
"It raises very sharply the question of what we should do about
patented research tools," remarks Professor John Barton, an intellectual
property specialist at Stanford Law School. Barton refers to Monsanto's
new patent as only the most recent in a line of extremely broad patents
covering biotech's most basic enabling technologies.
Breeding Controversy: Why are antibiotic resistance marker genes so
widely used? And why are they controversial?
Genetic engineering is an imprecise technology. Antibiotic resistance
markers, or selectable markers, are routinely used by genetic engineers
because they provide a cheap and easy way to find out whether a new gene
has been successfully transferred to a plant cell.
Scientists commonly introduce antibiotic resistance marker genes along
with the primary gene of interest. To identify the cells that have been
successfully transformed, scientists simply expose all the cells to the
antibiotic and only the cells that have the antibiotic resistant marker
gene will continue to grow. If the marker gene is present, so is the
new gene. The technique is known as "negative selection."
The use of antibiotic resistance markers is controversial. If the marker
gene remains in genetically transformed plants that are released in the
environment, there is concern that the presence of antibiotic resistance
markers in soils and food may decrease the efficacy of widely used
antibiotics, or increase the speed with which disease-causing pathogens
become resistant to antibiotics. Last year the European Union proposed
new rules banning antibiotic resistance genes in GM crops. Government
regulators are thus forcing the biotech industry to phase out the use of
antibiotic resistant genes in commercial GM crops. But marker genes are
still widely used in transgenic (GM) crops and in laboratory research.
Syngenta's Alternative - Patented Positech: In March 2000 Syngenta
unveiled a new marker gene system called "Positech," that enables
plant
cell transformation and selection without the use of antibiotic
resistance marker genes. The Positech marker system gives plant cells
the ability to digest mannose, a carbon source. Only the plant cells
that can digest the mannose-based food source will be able to grow - all
the others (the non-transformed plant cells) will die. The Positech
system is an example of what is known as a "positive selection"
technique. According to scientists interviewed by RAFI, Syngenta's broad
patent covers, in effect, the entire concept of positive selection. (The
Positech technology - US Patent 5,767,378 and WO9420627A1 - was
originally claimed as an invention by scientists at Denmark's Danisco (a
sugar company), who then sold the patent outright to Sandoz, which later
became Novartis, which last year became Syngenta.)
Syngenta claims that it will make Positech "widely available" to
both
industry and academic researchers through "simple licensing
procedures."2 It also boasts that it will provide Positech "royalty-free
for subsistence farmers in developing countries" through local
institutes or companies.
"The reality is totally different," explains RAFI's Shand. "Public
sector researchers who seek to license Syngenta's marker system must
abide by a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) that gives Syngenta first
rights to any results and prohibits the sharing of resulting materials
with third parties. By licensing Positech under this type of MTA,
Syngenta has a significant number of public sector researchers who are,
in effect, doing research for Syngenta!" Will Monsanto follow suit in
the licensing of its broad submarine patent?
Like all of the Gene Giants, Syngenta is desperately seeking moral
legitimacy, especially in the wake of its Golden Rice misfire. The
company thus claims to make Positech available royalty-free to
subsistence farmers in the developing world. But the reality is that
many poor countries do not recognize Syngenta's patent. Governments (or
companies) have every legal right to utilize any technology not patented
within their territories.
With the power of monopoly patents, Monsanto and Syngenta have
essentially "locked up" all currently viable marker selection
techniques. In addition, MTAs are being used as a powerful market weapon
to control potentially lucrative scientific advances.
Scientific Apartheid: "The biotech industry perpetually promises that
it will deliver for the public good, but the biotech research agenda is
virtually monopolized by corporate science in service to the Gene Giants
- not to poor farmers or the environment," states RAFI's Shand.
All methods of producing genetically modified crops are covered by
multiple and overlapping intellectual property constraints. All methods
of delivering DNA to plant cells are also proprietary, usually covered
by multiple patents. The irony is that many of these "inventions"
were
made at public institutions with public funding and then exclusively
licensed to companies who use them to capture more public sector
research results.
Consolidation Countdown: 5-4-3-2-1: Armed with obscenely broad patents
on basic enabling technologies, a handful of Gene Giants are legally
empowered to determine who gets access to proprietary science, and at
what price. Not surprisingly, today's GM harvest is characterized by
uniformity and concentration on a global scale:
* Five major Gene Giants - Pharmacia (Monsanto), DuPont, Syngenta,
Aventis, Dow - dominate agbiotech.
* Four industrial crop commodities (soybeans, maize, cotton, canola)
accounted for 100% of the commercial GM crop area in 2000.
* Three countries (US, Argentina and Canada) accounted for 98% of the
global transgenic area in 2000.
* Two genetically engineered traits - herbicide tolerance and B.t.
insect resistance - accounted for virtually all of the 44.2 million
hectares devoted to GM crops last year.
* Two patents controlled by Monsanto & Syngenta have "locked up"
currently viable marker selection techniques - a basic enabling
technology for agbiotech.
* One company's GM seed technology (Monsanto's) accounted for 94% of
the total world area devoted to commercial GM crops last year.
* * * * * *
For more information, contact: Hope Shand, RAFI. Telephone: 919
960-5223;
email: hope@rafi.org
RAFI (the Rural Advancement Foundation International) is an
international civil society organization based in Canada. RAFI is
dedicated to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and
to the socially responsible development of technologies useful to rural
societies. RAFI is concerned about the loss of biodiversity, and the
impact of intellectual property on farmers and food security.
1 US patent law was amended recently to curtail submarine patent
tactics. For example, US patents filed after 29 November 2000 will
automatically be published 18 months after they are filed.
2 Syngenta, News Release, "Positech breakthrough offers alternative to
antibiotic resistance marker genes for genetically enhanced crops," 23
May 2000. Available on the Internet:
www.info.novartis.com/media/index.html
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