9-Misc: Monsanto and Pioneer Hi-Bred sharing kernels of knowledge

[GENET <coordination@genet-info.org>]

-------------------------------- GENET-news -------------------------------

TITLE:  Sharing kernels of knowledge
SOURCE: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, USA, by Rachel Melcer
        http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/Business/
        Technology/E2720B943F58FBBE86256E59002344D6?OpenDocument&Headline=
        Sharing+kernels+of+knowledge
DATE:   Mar 15, 2004

------------------- archive: http://www.genet-info.org/ -------------------


Sharing kernels of knowledge

Monsanto Co. and Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., normally fierce
competitors, have joined with the public sector in a partnership of
"mutual dependency and mutual benefit" to unlock the genetic code of corn.

The companies, along with Ceres Inc., a Monsanto collaborator, said
Monday they are making their data on the corn genome available to
researchers at non-profit institutions, for non-commercial use.

Their goal is to ferret out the secrets of the genome, which in some ways
is more complex than the genetic code of humans. With the information in
hand, they hope to develop hybrid and genetically modified plants that
can, for example, survive in a drought, yield better-tasting and more
nutritious corn, or lead to more efficient production of ethanol fuel or
useful fibers.

The work should "enhance corn's position as the ideal crop for food,
feed, fuel and industrial uses," said Gary Davis, chairman of the
Research and Business Development Action Team of the National Corn
Growers Association. The NCGA, based in Chesterfield, is overseeing the
partnership.

 Through this collaboration, the corn genome could be sequenced by 2007.
Without it, the work likely would not be done until 2010 to 2012, said
Tom Adams, Monsanto's director of genomic technology. The basic work is
expected to cost at least $30 million to complete, with the price rising
to the hundreds of millions of dollars to answer very complicated,
detailed questions about the functions of corn.

"Certainly, these companies could do this genome on their own - it's a
matter of how much they want to spend," Adams said. Plus, they didn't
want to have a duplicative effort. "We wanted one effort that will result
in one useful thing, that everyone can benefit from."

Here's how the collaboration should work:

Public researchers will gain access to valuable data that has cost the
companies time and money to uncover. The companies will benefit from
completion of the genome sequence at no additional cost, because
government agencies and academic institutions are expected to foot the
researchers' bills.

Researchers will eventually publish their findings in scientific
journals, open to the public. First, however, the companies will get a
sneak peek at the work, along with options for non-exclusive licensing
deals. The companies would all see the same new data, but each likely
would develop different products with various competitive advantages - so
all could profit in the end.

"These partnerships work when there's mutual dependency and mutual
benefit, and I believe that's underlying the announcement today," said
Bill Niebur, vice president of discovery at Pioneer Hi-Bred, during a
Monday conference call with reporters. Pioneer Hi-Bred is a subsidiary of
DuPont based in Des Moines, Iowa.

The donated data will reside on a Web site developed and managed by the
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, a non-profit research facility
located near Monsanto's headquarters in Creve Coeur.

Scientists who would like to see it will have to register through the
NCGA, certifying that they are conducting non-commercial work and
agreeing to provide license options for Monsanto, Pioneer and Ceres.

Monsanto and its research partner, Malibu, Calif.-based Ceres, will not
be able to view the work already completed by Pioneer; and vice-versa.
What's more, the companies are not donating a deeper level of genomic
research that helps them to understand precisely how a gene functions
within the corn plant, said Brad Barbazuk, senior bioinformatics
specialist at the Plant Science Center. It is that type of information
that can translate directly into a commercially valuable hybrid or
genetically modified seed.

Still, the companies are donating "a tremendous resource, a tremendous
investment they've put into sequencing" corn, said Karol Schubert, the
Plant Science Center's vice president of technology management and
science administration.

Researchers, not tied to a profit motive, can use the companies' data as
a springboard for long-term, basic scientific research, said Davis. And
all of the data should ultimately benefit farmers.

"It's important for me, as a grower, to be provided with new traits," he
said. "I'm interested in how we can modify the corn plant, to enhance its
capacity."


                                  PART II
-------------------------------- GENET-news -------------------------------

TITLE:  Seed Concerns Donate Data on Corn Gene
SOURCE: The New York Times, USA, by Andrew Pollack
        http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/17/technology/17corn.html
DATE:   Mar 17, 2004

------------------- archive: http://www.genet-info.org/ -------------------


Seed Concerns Donate Data on Corn Gene

The nation's two leading seed companies have agreed to make a vast amount
of information about corn genes available to government and academic
scientists, an effort that the companies and outside scientists said
could greatly accelerate improvement of one of the nation's most
important crops.

The move by the companies, Monsanto and the Pioneer Hi-Bred International
unit of DuPont, is at least partly aimed at persuading the government to
undertake what could be a complex and expensive project to determine the
entire DNA sequence of corn, something that could aid in efforts to
develop crops with higher yields, resistance to drought or other
desirable traits.

"The technology exists to sequence the corn genome very rapidly," Tom
Adams, the director for genomic technology at Monsanto, said in a
conference call on Monday when the data donation was announced. "It
really is a matter of lining up all the efforts together."

Ceres, a small plant biotechnology company in California that
collaborates with Monsanto, also said on the conference call that it
would make its information available. The donation of the data was
arranged in part by the National Corn Growers Association, which is also
pushing for a project to sequence the corn genome.

Academic scientists welcomed the decision, saying that the amount of corn
gene sequences that will be put into the public domain by the companies
vastly exceeds the amount that is there now.

"For the public sector it will be a very valuable asset," said Joachim
Messing, a professor at Rutgers University who has been active in
government-financed projects to determine corn genes. "We have been
trying to persuade the companies to do that and it has been very
difficult in the past."

The change of heart by the companies could reflect changing priorities in
the agricultural biotechnology industry. A few years ago the companies,
commanding budgets that public-sector scientists envied, were far ahead
in the search for genetic information on important crops. But in the last
few years the government has been financing gene sequencing projects for
crops, helping the public sector catch up.

Much of the information the companies developed is about specific genes,
and the companies are believed to have already filed for patents on some
of the information they are now making publicly available.

The next step is to find where in the chromosomes the genes are,
something that requires determining the entire DNA sequence of the crop.
But such raw sequence information is very expensive to obtain and does
not have that much value to any single company.

"They have recognized that no one company can afford to sequence the
maize genome," said Patrick Schnable, a professor of plant genetics at
Iowa State University. By contributing their data to the effort, he said,
the companies are sending a signal to the government about the importance
they attach to such a project.

The companies themselves, executives said, do not plan to put money into
the genome sequencing project, which could cost $30 million to $100
million and could be completed as early as 2007.

Executives at Monsanto, Ceres and Pioneer said scientists wanting to use
the donated information would have to sign an agreement giving the
companies the right to negotiate licenses for any discovery made from the
data. But any such licenses would be nonexclusive, meaning they could be
offered to other companies as well. Both Dr. Schnable and Dr. Messing
said the terms did not appear highly restrictive.





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