Word: biotech
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Consider the plight of biotech firm Genentech in the early '90s. It had four promising drugs that it wanted to take into clinical trials one year, but it had resources for only three. On the bubble: the breast-cancer drug Herceptin. The R.-and-D. tax credit provided funds for Genentech to proceed with that fourth drug, which came to market last year and is now saving lives while ringing up sales of $75 million a quarter. With the tax credit, says Walter Moore, vice president of government affairs at Genentech, his company is able to pursue one additional drug...
...secure," says Megan Colligan, a college pal. Last year Gore got his first grandchild, Wyatt, born conveniently on the Fourth of July. As she does with her father, Karenna seems to delight in her husband for the things others might see as strange. Drew, 34, who works for a biotech venture-capital fund, is bright, attractive and good-natured. But like Gore, his mind is sometimes transfixed by the academic and arcane, as witnessed by a friend who watched Drew and the Veep happily spend a summer afternoon by the pool discussing daylight saving time. And he is routinely described...
...announced that in the fall it would propose new rules for genetically engineered crops and products. Instead of safety testing, it would require only that companies publicly disclose their new biotech crops before they are planted. Labeling would be voluntary...
Surveys indicate that between two-thirds and three-quarters of Americans want biotech food to be labeled. Then why not do it? Because companies fear such disclosure could spell disaster. "Our data show that 60% of consumers would consider a mandatory biotech label as a warning that it is unsafe," says Gene Grabowski, spokesman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America. "It is easier," BIO's Eramian points out, "to scare people about biotechnology than to educate them...
...labeling threat finally spurred a hitherto complacent industry into action. Last April, Monsanto, Novartis and five other biotech companies rolled out a $50 million television advertising campaign, with soft-focus fields and smiling children, pitching "solutions that could improve our world tomorrow...