Advantages /Disadvantages of partnership between the private sector & public in HGP(human genome project) - Essay Example

In present times, the most important project which has been undertaken to date in terms of biological science and biotechnology is the Human Genome Project which is supposed to map and sequence the human genome. This project was initially a public sector concern with scientists from Europe and American working together in an academic setting to map the human genome. In many cases, partnerships from the private sector have been invited in biotechnology projects in the past (The Noble Foundation, 2001).

However, singularly private sector companies and partnerships from the private sector have given certain advantages and disadvantages which are discussed below. The primary advantage of investment from the private sector in the HGP is ensuring that there is an economic benefit and business case which can be made for the development of the project. Venture capitalists, investors and stock owners are all willing to invest their hard earned money into the company working on the HGP therefore the money must come with some returns for the many investors.

This means that the private company has to be more efficient and often has to take some calculated risks in making sure that their results are more accurate, reliable and attained quicker than the public sector. This was exemplified by Celera Genomics which was able to use new methods for genome sequencing and completing the projecting in a shorter time span. Not only did the company complete the project faster than the government funded concern, they also completed it with one tenth the investment (Wikipedia, 2006).

Celera Genomics was not working in isolation since they were building on information which they had already obtained from many different sources. However, it must be noted that their investment levels as well as their project completion dates were much better than the government. Had they been working on the project as an ‘open source’ team which shares all its results with the public