Managing innovation: university-industry partnerships and the licensing of the Harvard mouse

Blaug, Sasha; Chien, Colleen V.; Shuster, Michael J

doi:10.1038/nbt0604-761

Cited by 19 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Such use of technology patents as end products to generate revenue, rather than as means to develop products, is a socially controversial if not uncommon business practice that is applied to research tools in biology and medicine (Heller and Eisenberg 1998;Holman 2006). In particular, Dupont's business plan for exploiting these three patents, bolstered by the broad scope of the allowed claims, have complicated and arguably slowed commercial applications of oncomice to the development of new cancer drugs, as has been discussed in other forums (Marshall 2002;Blaug et al 2004;Sharpless and DePinho 2006). The merit of the various claims allowed in these watershed patents has never been reconfirmed (or challenged) in the context of legal proceedings.…”

Section: A Distinctive Impact: Patenting the Oncomouse Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of oncomice: a history of the first transgenic mice genetically engineered to develop cancer

Hanahan¹,

Wagner²,

Palmiter³

2007

Genes Dev.

153

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This perspective describes the concurrent development in the 1980s of the first transgenic mice genetically engineered to express dominant oncogenes, involving independent researchers who were largely unaware of each other's strategies and progress. We relate the experimental designs, the pitfalls and challenges encountered, and the eventual success in developing distinctive mouse models of cancer, wherein tumors arose heritably in various organs. These early oncomice have produced a wealth of new knowledge, become topics of intellectual property, and spawned a vibrant field of cancer research that is revealing mechanisms of tumorigenesis and suggesting new therapeutic strategies for treating the human disease.Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.In the early 1980s, a technology for generating lines of "transgenic mice" carrying cloned genes integrated into the mouse genome was demonstrated to be a tractable and reproducible method (Gordon et el. 1980;Brinster et al. 1981;Costantini and Lacy 1981;Wagner et al. 1981; for review, see Palmiter and Brinster 1986). Concurrently, there was considerable excitement in cancer research, with the continuing discoveries and molecular cloning of viral and then cellular oncogenes. These genes were causally implicated in particular natural cancers and demonstrably capable of inducing transformation of cultured cells that would form tumors when transplanted in appropriate host animals. The two areas of research came together when transgenic mice carrying cloned oncogenes were generated and found in some cases to have heritable predispositions to the development of cancer. The first reports appeared in 1984, with others following in 1985-1987, collectively substantiating the hypothesis that oncogene expression in normal cells within normal tissues of a mammalian organism could lead to tumor development. In 1992, gene knockout technology converged in a similar fashion with tumor suppressor genetics in the generation of mice that developed cancers by virtue of lacking tumor suppressor gene function (for review, see Jacks 1996).The significance of these early technological innovations, which lead to genetically engineered mice endowed to heritably develop particular forms of cancer, can be appreciated by considering the scientific/technical landscape then, and now. Before these developments, cancer was largely modeled by tissue culture of cell lines established from human and animal tumors, and by the inoculation (transplantation) of such cell lines under the skin of immunodeficient mice, where lump-like solid tumors would form. While of clear utility in studying parameters of tumor growth, such models did not necessarily recapitulate the subtleties observed in human tumors arising in different organs, in terms of polymorphic genetic susceptibility, histological characteristics, and progression from benign premalignant lesions to tumors of increasing aggressiveness. Moreover, tumor transplant models, while frequently used as a benchmark to document activit...

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Section: A Distinctive Impact: Patenting the Oncomouse Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of oncomice: a history of the first transgenic mice genetically engineered to develop cancer

Hanahan¹,

Wagner²,

Palmiter³

2007

Genes Dev.

153

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“…26,27 University-industry interactions result in more discoveries being licensed to, and developed by, industry in exchange for funding. 28 Passage of legislation, such as the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, allowed these changes to incorporate industry-based funding, thereby reducing their own internal R&D spending and shoring up for the shortfall in federal research funding. Understanding these forces and using them effectively will be useful not only to academic programs but also to the surgical community on the whole.…”

Section: Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pasteur's Quadrant: Preparing Training Programs for “Use-Inspired” Surgical Research

Krajewski

Chandawarkar

2008

Journal of Surgical Education

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“…Many see the patent and the way DuPont uses it as a restriction of free academic inquiry and a delaying of progress in cancer research. In 1999, NIH, through a memorandum of understanding came to an agreement with DuPont allowing public health service scientists to use patents related to the oncomouse provided that such use was not for any commercial purpose [1]. Swedish universities.…”

Section: Intellectual Property Rights At Public Swedish Universitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This account is based on published material and a number of interviews with the scientists involved and other related persons that two of us (Persson and Welin) have conducted since 2000, when the first human embryonic stem cell derivations were performed in Sweden. 1 But first we will present the Swedish regime of intellectual property rights in the academic setting.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Profitable Exchanges for Scientists: The Case of Swedish Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Persson

Hemlin²,

Welin

2007

Health Care Anal

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In this article two inter-related issues concerning the ongoing commercialisation of biomedical research are analyzed. One aim is to explain how scientists and clinicians at Swedish public institutions can make profits, both commercially and scientifically, by controlling rare human biological material, like embryos and embryonic stem cell lines. This control in no way presupposes legal ownership or other property rights as an initial condition. We show how ethically sensitive material (embryos and stem cell lines) have been used in Sweden as a foundation for a commercial stem cell enterprise--despite all official Swedish strictures against commercialisation in this area. We also show how political decisions may amplify the value of controlling this kind of biological material. Another aim of the article is to analyze and discuss the meaning of this kind of academic commercial enterprise in a wider context of research funding strategies. A conclusion that is drawn is that the academic turn to commercial funding sources is dependent on the decline of public funding.

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Managing innovation: university-industry partnerships and the licensing of the Harvard mouse

Cited by 19 publications

References 10 publications

The origins of oncomice: a history of the first transgenic mice genetically engineered to develop cancer

The origins of oncomice: a history of the first transgenic mice genetically engineered to develop cancer

Pasteur's Quadrant: Preparing Training Programs for “Use-Inspired” Surgical Research

Profitable Exchanges for Scientists: The Case of Swedish Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research

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