Word: warf
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...affiliated, nonprofit Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation that the patent governing such cells--whether they were isolated at Wisconsin or not--resides. Anyone who wants to work with them may well have to sign an agreement with WiCell Research Institute, which was set up to distribute WARF's stem cells...
Recognizing the concerns of many scientists, the National Institutes of Health and WARF plan to meet this week to establish guidelines to accommodate the deluge of researchers who are expected to want access to stem cells. "I'm pretty confident that we can craft an agreement," says Maria Freire, head of the NIH's Office of Technology Transfer. "It's in everybody's best interest...
Despite fears expressed by many scientists that they would have to pay dearly to work on stem cells, officials at WARF are echoing Freire's sentiments. The foundation has licensed the Menlo Park, Calif., biotech firm Geron to commercialize six specific cell types derived from Thomson's five primary stem-cell lines--though it is fighting the company's attempt to extend that license to 12 more derived types...
...when it comes to research on the basic stem cells themselves, WARF and WiCell insist that they are planning to get as many independent researchers involved as possible to maximize the chance that something useful will come of stem cells. Those researchers will have to pay WiCell a nominal fee--$5,000--and may have to share royalties with the foundation on any commercially successful therapies...
...WARF's royalties will be low--historically they have ranged from less than 1% to 5% of net sales, with a fifth of that going to the scientist who made the original discovery. That's partly to make research widely available while still compensating scientists for their intellectual-property rights. "We have tried to make this access as open as possible," says WARF spokesman Andrew Cohn. "Imagine if a private company had sole control of this patent." Indeed, says Todd Dickinson, a patent attorney and former head of the U.S. Patent Office, "it sounds like WARF is trying to keep...