The Human Genome Project - Essay Example

ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES OF PRIVATE SECTOR-PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP IN HGP (HUMAN GENOME PROJECT) Introduction The Human Genome Project (HGP) is one of the most important projects in the history of mankind which will provide considerable benefits to entire humanity as the sequencing of human genomes will generate break through advances in the field of medicine. Thus the HGP is a sponsored program of the Department of Energy and National Institutes of Health Genome Programs as a national effort which planned to categorize all human genetic information by totally identifying the sequence of the DNA in the human genome. (Human, 2006). The significance of the project is indicated by the major initiative taken by the Government keeping in view its overall benefits to the public. It is also natural that the private sector which primarily operates on the basis of profit making only seeks projects which have a scope of providing substantial returns. The private sector also pursues only those projects which do not need extensive investments over a prolonged period, can generate profits within a reasonable time and do not have long gestation period.. Public enterprises on the other hand cannot be seen to operate only under consideration of profit and have to act in the interest of the larger public good. However efficiencies in the public sector are limited as incentives and motivations do not encourage a culture of efficiency and urgency. While keeping in view its importance, the HGP has to be pursued with greater speed and exigency. This entails a private and public partnership which can seek the benefits of both the sectors and has been the trend in pursuance of the HGP. Thus there are a number of privately funded concerns such as Celera Genomics and Incyte who are involved in the HGP while international and national government bodies such as the National Institute of Health, US Welcome Trust, and Sanger Institute in the UK are also very intimately involved in these projects. A similar initiative in the international field is the pursuance of the Human Genome Initiative or HGI which is attempting to map a comprehensive genetic and physical mads for every single human chromosome for all the known 24 ones and also evolve a total DNA sequence of the human genome. This is also following a private-public partnership based on complexity of the project and need for greater impetus. Advantages Economic Benefit The HGP is a project with extensive applications in wide ranging fields such as clinical medicine, agriculture and livestock, industrial processes, environmental biotechnology and DNA finger printing. (Giants, 2005). Most of the research is pioneering with limited precedence. The economic benefit of a private-public partnership is particularly evident in the HGP. This requires very heavy investments which have a long period of gestation. The public sector has the capacity to absorb such long term investments easily as financing of public projects is made on a long term basis. However there are limitations to which specific projects can be financed by public funds and there are invariably far too many caveats for expenditure of public money. This shortcoming of public funding can be overcome by use of private investments. Thus venture capitalists, investors and stock owners can be brought in to invest in projects as they are willing to put in money in companies which are profit making. The HGP is considered a highly lucrative project commercially and has numerous spin offs and hence a large number of companies are willing to invest in these projects. It is estimated by Nature magazine that the bioinformatics industry will have an output in excess of $1 billion per year. (Nature, 2001). Thus the scale of investments that can come in through these private and public partnerships is very high and cannot be envisaged if these are undertaken only through initiatives by either of the sectors. Overcoming Bureaucratic Restrictions of the Public Sector Another advantage of the private sector is its ability to tap and seek varied sources of information, resources, manpower and material from a wide range of industries, businesses and countries; where as the public sector is restricted in its approach to authorized sources only. Before tapping any new source a public agency has to seek many approvals and can carry out transactions with only registered firms. A large number of firms may not be keen to do business with government agencies given their bureaucratic processes and cumbersome business procedures. This problem can be overcome by involvement of private firms who do not have such restrictions and are willing to tap the most efficient source. Availability of new methods and different sources High-throughput sequencing of technologies is one of key issue for HGP's successes. New technology can be beneficial for saving time and money. Celera proved that the WGS (Whole Genome Shotgun) is both technically feasible and provides a dramatic cost-saving over the clone. (Celera, 1999). Almost all genome-sequencing projects since then have used some form of WGS. Such efficiencies in technology management are invariably found in the private sector where there is greater motivation for the same unlike in the public sector where there is considerable hesitation in employing new technologies and using different sources for fear of failure against public accountability. The private sector as the example of Celera has amply proved is not constrained by such inhibitions. Prevention of duplicating work by monitoring & enrichment of data by sharing The benefits of HGP have been fully established now. The field promises to be highly beneficial to humanity at large. Given the large scope of the HGP, a large number of private firms are keenly participating in the projects on their own initiatives apart from public sector agencies. This is resulting in duplication of effort and thus uneconomical utilization of resources. By a private and public partnership such wasteful effort can be saved and more economical employment of resources is envisaged. Despite considerable progress, the project has merely reached the end of the beginning. (Stein, 2004). Thus there is extensive in depth research required necessitating heavy intellectual and financial commitment. HGP is a knowledge based research. It is a process of conversion of mass of data into intelligible information and finally into knowledge. There is scope for duplication of such work when a number of agencies are separately engaged in it. The data and knowledge base built by the private industry can be effectively shared with the public sector thereby creating synergy in knowledge creation and achieving break through innovations much more efficiently and speedily than being done at present. A meeting of the best minds in the field will also enable easy transfer of knowledge by sharing of intellectual resources. Speed up for the project outcome The challenges of HGP are immense. There are far too many fields in which data is required to be collected, analyzed and compared with the existing knowledge base to arrive at reasonable conclusions. The entire project is likely to be heavy on time and costs. Time is particularly significant as it ultimately affects the cost and resource over runs. Avoidance of duplication effort, creation of cooperation through knowledge based partnerships and economy in utilization of resources will provide considerable advantages in speeding up the project. Such a condition can be achieved by a private and public partnership. Thus overlapping and monitoring can be avoided through sharing. Private agencies are more time conscious than the public sector as these have to ensure that the required dead lines are consistently met as else it will reflect on their profits. It is thus said that Celera generated a 2.91-billion base pair (bp) consensus sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome within a short period of six months. (Venter, 2001). Private firms are also accountable more intimately to their share holders and other stake holders unlike the public sector which has a more benign attitude towards time overruns. Thus a private and public partnership ensures that greater time efficiencies are achieved speeding up projects Approach to the market Private enterprises with their reach, approach and experience have a greater ability to productionalise a product and reach the market rather than public agencies. Thus products developed by public-private partnership can be most profitably brought into the market through the private partner. The lack of market network of public companies implies that the benefit of the therapeutic products developed through the HGP will reach the public only through the private companies and therefore these have an important role to play in the process and will prove invaluable in a public private partnership. Disadvantages Conflict of public and commercial interests. Private interests are primarily focused on making short term profits. The public agencies act for the overall benefit of society with long term aims. Thus there is an apparent variation in the objectives of both the parties. This conflict of interests will be finally detrimental to the overall development and achievement of aims of the HGP. This conflict is reflected in the aim of the public agencies which is to create a scientific standard by deep sourced research which can withstand the test of time. There is no scope for failure in a public enterprise as it would have lasting consequences and credibility of the establishment is affected. Thus applications for patenting are submitted with great deliberation and ensure that public interest is protected at all times. Private firms on the other hand are not concerned about overall public interest and are more involved in the benefit of promoters and share holders. These may thus go in for short term gains and may even leave the projects half way once these goals are achieved They may even go to the extent of blocking patents which are beneficial in the process. Thus their involvement will hamper work of public agencies and will not be beneficial for the overall good of society. More over having achieved success in a particular field of HGP by applying patent laws, private firms will restrict sharing of knowledge and continue to utilize it for profit making against the norms of public good. At times this may restrict the growth of the field thereby preventing further research in medical science which would have otherwise saved many lives. This lack of transparency by private firms who may use public knowledge to further their own profits without being transparent militates against a public-private partnership in HGP. Cost of basic research There is reasonable presumption in scientists that creation of databases in the private sector would deny primary information to researchers thereby hindering their potential. (Marks. Steinberg, 2002). The induction of private enterprises in the field of HGP is thus said to lead to an increase in cost. As brought about before, private companies operate purely from a motive of profit. This results in their employing strategies for creation of a patented data and knowledge base which is shared with other parties purely based on motive of financial benefit accruing thereof. This results in maintenance of exclusive data bases and denial of such information to the public. This has not only resulted in enhanced cost of research but is also acting against public interest. In some cases it is also feared that private companies have been exploiting their existing partnerships with the public sector to sell knowledge acquired at huge profit. This has resulted in an overall increase in cost of basic research. Unfair research practices and monopolies The benefit provided by the public-private partnerships has raised fears of unfair research practices and monopolies by private parties. Thus private companies are likely to restrict their research in areas to those fields which are highly lucrative or where there is scope for commercial profit, neglecting ones in general human interest. This is also seen to create monopolies in varied areas which are not seen of concern to overall development of HGP and needs to be discouraged. There may thus be a need to exercise caution in evolving Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) and other documents to ensure that fool proof, unexploitable clauses are drafted for preventing misuse of research and also focus on the main HGP project rather than diverting it to peripheral areas. Increase in Litigious Procedures Delaying Research The infringement of patent laws and other cases related to exploitation of public data, using minor modifications in original research to develop new products and register patents is becoming a common norm in the field of biotechnology today. (Williams, 2001). Thus there are greater number of litigations and other restricting behavior which is observed in the public domain which will prevent smooth development of HGP. This is no doubt a limitation of a public private partnership which is causing heavy encumbrance by providing routes of litigation over minor infringements. Conclusion Private and public partnerships can provide considerable benefits to the overall growth of the HGP project. This is evident with the advantages accruing from economy, synergy, and avoidance of duplication and speeding up the process of research undertaken through a coordinated approach. This will enable partaking strengths of the public sector of acting in overall long term interest of humanity with that of the private sector of greater accountability and efficiency. There are some disadvantages in this model such as a conflict of interests, unfair practices and enhancing the cost of basic research. By effectively drawing out memorandum of understanding and joint monitoring, these disadvantages can be easily overcome. References 1. Human. (2006). Human Genome Project. Retrieved November 11, from Wikipedia.org website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genome_Project 2. Celera. (1999). Human gene patents defended. Retrieved November 10, from BBC.co.uk website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/487773.stm. 3. Nature. (2001). Opinion, Nature 409, 745 (15 February 2001). Retrieved December 03 from http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v409/n6822/full/409745a0.html 4. Stein, Lincoln D. (2004). Human genome: End of the beginning. Nature 431, 915-916(21 October 2004). Retrieved December 03 from http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v431/n7011/full/431915a.html#a1 5. Giants. (2005). On the Shoulders of Giants: Private Sector Leverages HGP Successes. Retrieved December 03 from http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/privatesector.shtml. 6. Venter, J. C. et al. (2001). Science. Vol. 291. No. 5507, 16 February 2001. pp. 1304 - 1351. 7. Marks, A. Steinberg, Karen K. (2002). The Ethics of Access to Online Genetic Databases: Private or Public Retrieved December 03 from www.cdc.gov/genomics/population/file/print/ethicsonline.pdf 8. Williams KM. (2001). New draconian restrictions on U.S. patent scope: FESTO. Palmer & Dodge, LLP 2001. . Retrieved December 03 from http://www.palmerdodge.com/dspSingleArticle.cfmArticleid=352. Read More