TITLE: Monsanto Offers Patent Waiver AUTHOR: Justin Gillis PUBLICATION: Washington Post DATE: 4 August 2000 URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33142-2000Au g3.html MONSANTO OFFERS PATENT WAIVER By Justin Gillis Washington Post Staff Writer 4 August 2000 Monsanto Co. said last night that it would give away certain patent rights to speed use of a genetically modified rice that could save millions of malnourished children in poor countries from dying or going blind. The company said it would grant patent licenses at no charge to the developers of "golden rice," a variety of genetically modified rice enriched in beta carotene, the building block of Vitamin A. More than a million children weakened by Vitamin A deficiency die every year in poor countries, and at least 300,000 more go blind. Monsanto has been battered in recent years by controversy over its development of genetically altered crops, which some environmentalists fear could lead to unforeseen ecological damage. The company, though, is trying to seize the high ground and demonstrate that agricultural biotechnology can be used for good. "Obviously we're committed to the growth of biotechnology, and these applications of biotechnology in the developing world are real," said Gary F. Barton, a spokesman for the company. "They meet very human needs." Monsanto's patents are by no means the only barrier to producing golden rice, but they are a major one. The company's offer, announced at an agricultural conference in India, was welcomed by Ingo Potrykus, the emeritus professor at the Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland who used technology owned by Monsanto and others to invent golden rice. He has been crusading to get the product accepted around the world. "I am grateful for this offer, which I certainly will accept," Potrykus said last night from his home in Magden, Switzerland. "I consider the Monsanto offer important because I can now use this case to tell other companies, 'Look, Monsanto is giving me a free license. Won't you do the same?' It's an important first example." Potrykus's goal is to distribute golden rice free to peasant farmers in all poor countries where rice is grown. Rice, Oryza sativa, is the staple food for half the human population, and growing it is the single most important economic activity in the world. Potrykus, with support from other scientists, the Swiss government and the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, developed golden rice specifically to make a large dent in malnutrition. But then he found himself embroiled in a dizzying web of patent problems  as many as 32 companies and institutions hold 70 patents that cover technologies used in the creation of golden rice. Like other academic scientists, Potrykus was allowed to use patented technology in his research without fear of being sued. That's a common practice. But releasing the rice into international commerce is a more serious step, one more likely to raise objections from patent holders. If the rice were intended for sale Potrykus could simply negotiate licenses to the patents, but that would likely make it far too expensive to give away in poor countries. Under pressure to demonstrate that agricultural biotechnology is more than just a vehicle for raising corporate profits in rich countries, companies lately have been falling into line behind golden rice. AstraZeneca PLC of London negotiated a deal to give Potrykus patent rights for use in poor countries in exchange for the right to sell golden rice to farmers in wealthy countries. But Monsanto, now a wholly owned unit of Pharmacia Corp., is the first big company to waive its rights unconditionally. It was unclear last night how many of the 70 patents Monsanto holds, but a single one of them, on a key genetic sequence that Potrykus used in his work, might well have been sufficient to block production. If potential patent disputes and related issues are resolved, Potrykus said, breeding stocks of the rice could be sent to agricultural institutes around the world later this year. They would cross it with varieties adapted to local conditions, and golden rice could be planted in paddies by 2004. "I am very optimistic now that this will be a reality," Potrykus said. "The present public pressure on ag-biotech companies is very helpful in this respect. They feel they should be doing something for their good name in public relations." Potrykus and his collaborators used agricultural biotechnology to solve a problem that could not be solved through conventional crossbreeding. Rice can make beta carotene in its leaves, but no variety is known to make it in the edible endosperm. So Potrykus used modern techniques of genetic manipulation to insert genes from the daffodil that encode the biological machinery for production of beta carotene. Beta carotene is the substance that makes carrots orange. The lower concentrations in Potrykus's rice give it a delicate golden hue. The human body readily converts beta carotene into Vitamin A, ensuring an adequate supply of that vital nutrient. Vitamin A deficiency can lead not only to blindness but also to severe immune deficiency, making a malnourished person prey to numerous diseases. Figures compiled by the Rockefeller Foundation suggest that about 400 million people in poor countries suffer Vitamin A deficiency every year, and it's serious enough in about half of them to impair their immune systems. Between 1 million and 2 million die every year of infections and other diseases that exploit the deficiency, and hundreds of thousands more go permanently blind. Many of the victims are children. "It's certainly one of the major nutritional problems in the world," said Gary Toenniessen, director of food security at the Rockefeller Foundation. Toenniessen said that even if all the patent problems are resolved, there will still be serious barriers to deploying golden rice around the world. Notably, countries have to be convinced that it poses no threat to the ecology or to human health. AstraZeneca plans a comprehensive battery of nutritional and environmental tests that should help with that, he said. Groups skeptical of agricultural biotechnology were generally unaware last night of Monsanto's offer, which was released at 11 p.m. But they have been suspicious of golden rice, arguing that it is a convenient tool for Western corporations to burnish their image. "Critics are concerned that the advent of golden rice's 'quick fix' for Vitamin-A deficiency could kneecap other low-tech and more cost-effective initiatives, among them, to re-introduce the many vitamin-rich food plants that were once cheap and available," the Rural Advancement Foundation International said recently in a statement. "Rather than nurture a strategy that encourages biodiversity, golden rice could promote monocultures and genetic uniformity. This is the wrong strategy." © 2000 The Washington Post Company BIO-IPR docserver TITLE: Monsanto Plans to Offer Rights To Its Altered-Rice Technology AUTHOR: Christopher Marquis PUBLICATION: The New York Times DATE: 4 August 2000 SOURCE: Biotech Activists list URL: http://www.sustain.org/biotech/News/News.cfm MONSANTO PLANS TO OFFER RIGHTS TO ITS ALTERED-RICE TECHNOLOGY By Christopher Marquis The New York Times 4 August 2000 WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 -- In a bid to foster support for biotechnology and save lives, the Monsanto Corporation will make available patent rights to genetically altered rice that could help stave off malnutrition in poor nations, the company's president said tonight. Hendrik A. Verfaillie, the president and chief executive of the St. Louis-based company, said Monsanto will forgo licensing fees for using its technology to make "golden rice," a modified strain that is rich in beta carotene, a source of Vitamin A. "The purpose of golden rice is to bring Vitamin A where people suffer," Mr. Verfaillie said in a telephone interview. The development of the rice, he added, "clearly demonstrates that biotechnology can help not only countries in the West, but in the developing world as well." Worldwide, about two hundred million children suffer from Vitamin A deficiencies, and about a million children succumb to diseases partly caused by a lack of adequate defenses. Hundreds of thousands more go blind each year, experts say. Monsanto's unusual offer, which was first reported in Friday's issue of The Washington Post, will cost the corporation financially, Mr. Verfaillie said. But it appeared aimed in part at countering a tide of negative publicity over the proliferation of genetically altered crops. Skepticism toward such products is especially acute in Western Europe, whose market is coveted by American producers. The company's offer was applauded by the developer of golden rice, Ingo Potrykus, a Swiss professor. In remarks to reporters, Mr. Potrykus said he would seek to persuade other companies to follow Monsanto's lead and provide life-saving biotechnology to poor nations free of charge. Beta carotene is the same substance that give carrots their color. The body converts it into Vitamin A, which becomes an essential nutrient that boosts the immune system and wards off disease. Monsanto, a large agricultural biotechnology company that is a unit of the Pharmacia Corporation, announced in April that it had decoded the genes of rice, described at the time as the most complex plant decoded to date. Company spokesmen said they hoped the findings would lead to rice with greater yields. The company and its competitors have come under criticism from environmentalists and some science groups for their work on genetically modified crops, which the critics say could damage the environment and prove dangerous for consumption. The announcement today could help blunt some of the criticism if the move lives up to its promise of saving the lives of otherwise malnourished children around the world. Some groups that have been critical of biotechnology companies have questioned whether the widespread distribution of golden rice is a good idea. In a recent statement quoted in The Post, the Rural Advancement Foundation said that "critics are concerned that the advent of golden rice's 'quick fix' for Vitamin A deficiency could kneecap other low-tech and more cost-effective initiatives -- among them, to reintroduce the many vital-rich food plants that were once cheap and available." © 2000 The New York Times GOING FURTHER (compiled by GRAIN) "Grains of Hope?", Time Magazine, 31 July 2000. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articles/0,3266,50576,00. html Craig Holdrege and Steve Talbott, "Golden Genes and World Hunger: Let them eat transgenic rice?", NetFuture #108, The Nature Institute, 6 July 2000. http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/stevet/netfuture/2000/J ul0600_108.html Kelvin Ng, "To Critics, 'Golden Rice' Has No Shine", Inter Press Service, 21 June 2000. http://www.ips.org/ips/IPS.NSF/vwbyEngDataOnTest/4DEFC30FC5 81E95980256905002 862AF?OpenDocument RAFI, "On Golden Pawns: Do the poor get unproven GM rice while AstraZeneca gets the Gold?", 20 June 2000. http://www.rafi.org Institute of Science in Society, "The 'Golden Rice': An exercise in how not to do science", ISIS-TWN Sustainable Science Audit #1, 16 June 2000. http://www.i-sis.org/ BIOTHAI, KMP and MASIPAG, in cooperation with VIA CAMPESINA and GRAIN, "Genetically Engineered Rice Good for PR, Not the Poor", Joint Statement, 2 June 2000. http://www.grain.org/press/press020600.htm "Deal Signed on 'Golden Rice'", BBC, 17 May 2000. (Offers an audio debate between Haydn Parry of Zeneca and Dr Mae Wan Ho of ISIS.) http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_7520 00/752378.stm GRAIN, "Engineering Solutions To Malnutrition", March 2000. http://www.grain.org/publications/reports/malnutrition.htm Michela Wrong, "Field of Dreams: Potrykus' Golden Rice", Financial Times, 25 February 2000. http://www.genepeace.ch/new/fields_of_dreams.htm Florianne Koechlin, "Golden Rice: The Big Illusion?" No Control on Life! Mail-Out No. 74, Blueridge Insitute, February 2000. (Also in German.) http://www.blauen-institut.ch/Pages/P_MailOut/pMailOut.html