Berkeley Pact With a Swiss Company Takes Technology Transfer to a New Level When an entire department is involved, has the university given away too much? By GOLDIE BLUMENSTYK From his dean's perch at the University of California at Berkeley, Gordon Rausser saw one thing clearly as he watched giant life-sciences companies like DuPont, Monsanto, and Novartis racing furiously in the last few years to amass and control information about plant genomics: He saw an opportunity. ALSO SEE: Join a debate on the issues raised in this article The College of Natural Resources, which he heads, wanted more money to support graduate students in plant science, and to upgrade laboratories. Routine appeals to companies weren't yielding much. So Mr. Rausser decided to create a little competition of his own, offering the expertise of the college's Department of Plant and Microbial Biology in exchange for major financial backing from the single company making the best offer. "I'm an economist," says Mr. Rausser. Given the "winner-take-all race that they were involved in in their markets," he says, it seemed the notion would arouse some companies' competitive juices. It did. But the idea, brought to fruition last month with the announcement of a five-year, $25-million "strategic alliance" between a Novartis offshoot and the plant-biology department, is also sparking fierce debate on the Berkeley campus -- and throughout academe -- about the influence of industry money on academic research. The debate is especially charged because the alliance relates to the politically heated issue of biotechnology in agriculture. Critics say the arrangement, by favoring a corporate patron that is looking for new agricultural and pharmaceutical products, could skew research priorities and compromise the university's mission of serving a broad array of public interests. Although industry research grants in the $25-million range are not unheard of, the deal is unusual because it applies to an entire department, not a single researcher or a team working on a specific topic. In that sense, the Berkeley-Novartis alliance is similar to a landmark research agreement between Monsanto and the medical school at Washington University in St. Louis. That alliance began in 1982 and has since produced some $150-million in basic-research money for the school. Berkeley's deal, however, lacks some of the academic-freedom protections found in the Washington University-Monsanto arrangement. Under the new agreement, the Novartis offshoot is providing money and access to proprietary technology and information about plant genes to Berkeley faculty members and graduate students. In return, the Novartis offshoot will receive the first rights to license exclusively up to one-third of the inventions that result. The one-third limit on exclusive licenses follows the model adopted by the Scripps Research Institute after it was criticized, in 1993, for signing a $200-million research deal that would have given broad licensing rights to its research sponsor, Sandoz. Sandoz and another Swiss drug company, Ciba-Geigy, merged in 1996 to form Novartis. Berkeley's arrangement is with the Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute, a body created by the Swiss-based Novartis Foundation in April with a budget of $600-million for 10 years. Although Novartis is getting an inside track on commercializing inventions, Mr. Rausser says the notion of licensing university inventions is already well established. "The best stuff is going to go to some major company," he says. Under other circumstances, universities can decide not to patent an invention, or to patent it and then license it non-exclusively. But under the agreement, the Novartis institute has the right to ask the university to patent certain inventions -- at the institute's expense. Novartis then has the right to negotiate for an exclusive license to develop those inventions into products. Critics of the alliance, including a Berkeley student group and some plant scientists at other universities, say that the college runs the risk of being seen as an ally of Novartis. That might discourage other companies or organizations from supporting research there. (Mr. Rausser dismisses the charge as "nonsense.") It might even diminish the college's reputation as an unbiased source of information. "The capacity for disinterested science is lessened," says Monica Moore, program director of the Pesticide Action Network in San Francisco. The group, along with about 50 others concerned with ecology and health issues, has written to university officials to oppose the deal. Advocates for small-farm interests, in particular, are alarmed by the deal. Desmond A. Jolly, director of the Small Farm Program at the University of California at Davis, says land-grant institutions like his and Berkeley should be conducting research for the benefit of the broad public, not certain giant agribusinesses. "It's a turning point in the mandate, mission, and methods of land-grant universities," says Mr. Jolly. Novartis and Berkeley officials say that the criticism is unfounded, and that many of the opponents misunderstand the nature of the alliance. If anything, the officials insist, the alliance should result in more creative research. That's because unlike most of the plant-biology department's other corporate-sponsored projects -- and indeed much of the industry-supported agricultural research at other universities -- the Novartis money won't be tied to the specific research interests of a company, they say. The agreement codifying the deal does not delineate research topics, but notes that the Novartis institute has an interest in basic research on agricultural genomics and a desire to commercialize ideas that result from that research. Plant genomics has been an important research topic for the department as well. Such research could be useful in developing disease-resistant crops or food products that reduce human susceptibility to disease. The deal also gives Berkeley scientists access to cutting-edge research tools and vast data bases of genomic information owned by Novartis that they otherwise couldn't see or use. "I'm hoping that they'll do outrageous stuff," says Steven P. Briggs, president of the Novartis institute. Mr. Briggs says he would be satisfied if the alliance resulted in just one great finding that Novartis could eventually turn into a product. "This is a gamble," he says. The institute also is expected to develop a facility on or near the Berkeley campus for 20 to 30 of its own scientists, who would be available to work with university researchers and, perhaps, to serve as adjunct professors. Under one proposal, faculty members at the College of Natural Resources would share space in the new facility. Because of that proposal, it has been widely thought that the Novartis institute had pledged an additional $25-million for a new or renovated campus building. But Mr. Rausser, the dean, says any such gift is still under negotiation. The selection of Novartis grew out of a process that began a year ago, when Mr. Rausser decided on his single-sponsor experiment. The college sent inquiries to 16 agricultural, biotechnology, and life-sciences companies. It received positive responses from Novartis and five others: DuPont, Monsanto, Pioneer-Hi-Bred, Sumitomo, and Zeneca. Mr. Rausser and a small team then visited each company and briefed officials on the research interests of faculty members. Berkeley received three formal proposals -- from Monsanto, from Novartis, and from DuPont and Pioneer jointly. The Novartis proposal stood out, says Mr. Rausser, because it offered the greatest access to company information and provided for the most academic freedom. Some of the others, for example, sought to limit the research money to specific scientists, he says. Also, a few Berkeley officials knew and respected Mr. Briggs, who had just left Pioneer for Novartis. Some students and professors in the college's other departments -- and at least one professor in plant biology -- say the process has been too secretive and political, which may have created pressure on faculty members to endorse the deal. "With a dean wholly in support of this alliance, the university runs the risk that faculty in opposition to the alliance may not speak out for fear of being denied promotions, funding, research space, or other support," says Students for Responsible Research, an ad hoc group that formed in response to the alliance. Some 400 students signed a petition opposing the deal. The faculty-governance body for the college is now surveying all 109 faculty members in its four departments about the alliance. "The deal has been very, very divisive," says Ignacio H. Chapela, an assistant professor of microbial ecology and chairman of the faculty body. Mr. Rausser acknowledges that he, along with high-level officials from the chancellor's office, did push forcefully for the alliance. But "there was also pushing from the bottom," he says. "It never would have happened unless faculty wanted it too. They became willing partners early in the process." Of the 32 faculty members in the plant-biology department, all but two have signed on to the deal or are expected to do so. One of the holdouts, Richard Malkin, says he's concerned that the agreement will further shift the college's focus away from teaching. The other, Donald Kaplan, says he fears it will merely reinforce a conformist research agenda on graduate students and professors. "It's a Faustian bargain," says Mr. Kaplan, like Mr. Malkin a senior faculty member. "You're going to want to please the people who are bankrolling you." Under the agreement, a Research Committee of five people -- three from the college and two from Novartis -- will allocate research awards. Of the $5-million to be provided annually, two-thirds will be available for research; the rest will be set aside for university overhead. Mr. Rausser says he expects some of the overhead will be used to improve labs throughout college. The agreement also calls for a six-member Advisory Committee to oversee the relationship, with three coming from Berkeley and three from Novartis. At the request of Berkeley's Academic Senate, one of the university's representatives is to be a scientist with no ties to the College of Natural Resources. The Senate found that the agreement seemed adequately to cover such issues as patents, publication policy, and governance, says Robert C. Spear, its vice-chair. But Senate members remain concerned about "broader and more subtle impacts," such as "the potential for an unhealthy narrowing of the nature and direction of the department's research agenda, including the range of opportunities for graduate students." The department has about 70 graduate students and 150 postdoctoral students. The question for many, says Mr. Spear, is, "Is it going to warp the direction of research of the department?" To deal with those concerns, the Senate received a guarantee from Berkeley's chancellor, Robert M. Berdahl, of support for a formal research study to monitor the agreement. The president of the University of California system, Richard C. Atkinson, "is dead keen on these forms of industrial collaboration," says Mr. Spear, so such an analysis could be especially useful, because the issue is likely to arise again. Mr. Rausser says he doesn't mind the study, calling it "a wise recommendation." Officials involved in the Washington University-Monsanto alliance say Berkeley's failure to involve parties from outside the university to help oversee the arrangement is a defect. "I think it's a big mistake," says Philip Needleman, a former professor at the Washington University medical school who is now chief scientist for Monsanto and president of its Searle pharmaceutical division. Every three years, Monsanto and Washington University invite a team of five eminent outsiders to review the program, interview graduate students privately to be sure they're not being pushed into inappropriate corporate research, and talk with medical-school professors who have won and been rejected for grants, to ascertain if the program is operating as designed. Nonetheless, Mr. Briggs, the Novartis institute's president, says he doesn't expect the Novartis funds to skew researchers' priorities. He is working on "significant relationships" with other institutions for basic research, as well, but he declines to give details. Other life-science companies are doing the same, often at the invitation of the universities themselves. Iowa State University, for example, has strong ties to Pioneer and "is looking for ways to make it a better relationship," says Colin G. Scanes, the executive associate dean at its College of Agriculture. At the same time, he says, he's wary. "No university should become, or should be seen, as a wholly owned subsidiary of a company." He declines to say what he thinks of the Berkeley arrangement. Such industry interest is not necessarily welcome. "Obviously, they want to support basic research that helps them make a profit," says Chuck Hassebook, program director for the Center for Rural Affairs, in Walthill, Neb., and a member of the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. "Where's the public interest in these arrangements?" He worries, for example, that as more industry money goes into biotechnology, other kinds of research will be neglected, especially research on new approaches to farming or to public health that don't result in commercial products. Margaret G. Mellon, director of the agriculture and biotechnology program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in Washington, says she too fears that the "gene jockeys" are overtaking the agricultural-research agenda. "We've got biotech and the need for products in the driver's seat," she says. "If we allow the private sector to engulf the public sector, we will be much the losers." Yet leading academic researchers in plant biology say their field needs more support, and deals like the Berkeley-Novartis alliance are perhaps worth making. The arrangement may limit the department's attractiveness to other companies, but in all likelihood, "it will not, and should not, limit the quality of the science," says Roger Beachy, a renowned plant scientist at Scripps who has just been named to head a new independent Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis. Yet given the choice, Mr. Beachy would take a different tack. "If there was enough research [money] that you could do it without the companies, I think you'd want to minimize rather than expand these relationships." In fact, he's doing just that. At the new Danforth center, he notes, no corporation will get special access or commercial rights. It was a chance to be involved with fundamental research "that owed no one," he says, so he jumped at it. http://chronicle.com Section: Money & Management Page: A56