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CNN Live At Daybreak

Free Stem Cells?

Aired August 21, 2001 - 07:14   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: An Australian company says it has figured out a way of getting around patents on stem cells. That's right, those stem cell lines you've heard about in the news, some of them are actually patented. It is offering the one that it holds for free. But there is a catch.

And CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here to explain it.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Colleen, in the beginning of this talk about stem cells, it was all about morals. It was about embryos, are they human, are they not. God was involved. Right now it's all about the money.

What we heard last week was that the University of Wisconsin said hey, we own the patent on embryonic stem cells and if anyone's going to make any money, it's going to be us, because we actually hold the patent.

Well, now an Australian company called BresaGen is trying to do at least a temporary end run around the patent issue by saying yes, it's true, the University of Wisconsin has the patent, but we're going to give our stem cells away for free and no commercial transaction, no patent problems. At least that's their theory.

Let's hear from the company called BresaGen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED BRESAGEN SPOKESMAN: BresaGen would like to give the cells away because we think from a moral and ethical standpoint, the more widely disseminated the cells are to do bona fide research and development, then the better off everybody will be because we want to find cures for degenerative diseases in a timely fashion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Now, of course, there's a catch here. If one of those researchers who receives the stem cells comes up with, say, the cure to cancer, then BresaGen definitely wants a cut of that action. We talked to the University of Wisconsin. They don't completely buy this temporary end run that BresaGen is trying to do. They say that if anyone comes up with any kind of cures or treatments, they'll get their cut, too. MCEDWARDS: You know, some people might be surprised to even know that these stem cell lines can be patented. These are parts of the human body. How do you get a patent?

COHEN: Exactly. I mean the way stem cells are made is that you take an embryo which came from a man's sperm and a woman's egg, and then you get it to a certain stage, you scoop the stem cells out from the middle and you grow them. And so of course some people would say well, how can you patent that? Well, you can patent the technique that makes those, which is what the University of Wisconsin did back in about 1998. And so now every other company that uses that technique to make embryonic stem cells really kind of probably owes some kind of a cut to the University of Wisconsin.

Again, they didn't patent necessarily specific stem cell lines. They patented the technique to make those stem cells.

MCEDWARDS: Is anybody worried that all these machinations are going to get in the way of good research or might it even spur it on?

COHEN: Well, yes, there are lots of worries that it will get in the way, not necessarily that it will keep good research from happening, but that it might delay it. I mean we thought it, many people thought it seemed like a long time that Bush was thinking about the different moral choices that were presented before him. Well, that may be nothing compared to the amount of time that it will take the lawyers to get through this.

I mean as you can imagine, there are so many companies involved, the federal government is involved, private researchers, public researchers, that this could just go on and on. And there are going to be a lot of lawyers out there who are going to get very rich off of this.

MCEDWARDS: That's not an unlikely scenario.

COHEN: Right.

MCEDWARDS: Thanks very much for bringing it to our attention.

Elizabeth Cohen, thanks.

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