Coming to Grips With Biotechnology

A few years ago, biotechnology emerged as the glamorous new frontier of industrial science. The glittering promise of tremendous financial and intellectual rewards led to the emergence of several hundred biotechnological companies, many of which turned to the country's top-notch universities for leadership and research guidance. The increasing numbers of professors who left their institutions or tried to balance academic and private sector commitments sparked concern about the ethical implications for universities.

But during the past year, experts in the field agree, the relationship between the private biological sector and various biology departments has begun to settle down. The public has begun to realize the new companies will not provide mass-produced biological cure-alls, and financial investors no longer regard them as a quick get-rich scheme. In addition, officials at Harvard and other universities have taken advantage of the "lull" to resolve some of the basic problems that plagued the academic-private sector relationship. As one official puts it, the once highly controversial relationship "has begun to gather dust."

This year three major events marked the beginning of a more permanent relationship between Harvard and the private sector. In October, the Faculty adopted a policy defining terms for determining a professor's conflict of interest between the University and private companies. In March, a Harvard Nobel laureate announced that he would give up his tenure at the end of this year in order to dedicate himself completely to his genetic company. And finally, early this April presidents from five major universities met with officials of leading biotechnological companies to draw up tentative guidelines for creating an optimal relationship between industry and academia.

According to scientists at universities throughout the country, the biotechnological industry cooled down once its wonder drug, interferon, proved not to be a miracle cure for cancer. The shrinking pubic appeal of these businesses led to a sharp reduction in investments and sparked an intense competition that has threatened many of the smaller firms. Jeremy R. Knowles, Amory Professor of Chemistry, predicts that "the smaller ones [will] be eaten by the larger ones in a Darwinian struggle for survival."

Officials at local biotechnological companies agree, saying that only firms with sound management and strong financial backing will survive in the fierce competition for research contracts. Saying that this competition is "not unique in the early developing stages of an industry," Gabriel Schmergl, president of the Genetics Institute in Boston, adds that it's the process of "separating the weak from the strong."

Even though the industry's feverish pace has slowed somewhat in the last year, the companies continue to rely heavily on biologists from all levels of academia. Many of the old problems still exist and the increased competition has only heightened academic officials' fears. University administrators, worry that professors with divided loyalties will hold back projects from publication or use their university labs to do research relating to their outside responsibilities. Stephen H. Atkinson '67 says that if a company is struggling, "it might ask consultants to do things that require intense participation or inappropriate actions to participate in clearly applied projects."

Faculty members disagree about what conflicts occur when they take-on responsibilities beyond the walls of Harvard. Frederick Ausubel, associate professor of Biology and a consultant for the nine-month-old Biotechnica, Inc. says a potential conflict of spirit can occur. "Can one devote all that much time to creative work at a university and at the same time have a major creative endeavor somewhere else?" he asks rhetorically.

Knowles believes that his situation--as both professor and consultant--is "not so much a conflict of interests as a conflict of commitment" Saying that extramural activities might force a professor to neglect his students and his academic commitments, he adds that it is his responsibility to make sure that does not occur. "A conflict of interest is much easier to find but a conflict of commitment can be dangerous," Knowles says, and Walter Gilbert, American Cancer Society Professor of Molecular Biology, agrees that "exploitation of students is more difficult to deal with" because it can be hidden. Neither thinks that conflict of commitment is very present at Harvard.

A professor's affiliation with a company may take a number of forms including owning stock in a company, serving on its board of directors or serving as an owner or operating officer--and university officials and professors have had difficulties determining precisely when conflicts of interest arise. The general consensus has been that strict consulting does not constitute a conflict of interest Professors at Harvard are allowed to consult one day a week but must disclose their outside involvements to the dean of Faculty. Lawrence Bogorad, Cabot Professor of Biology, says he consults a few days a year to "discuss possibilities for experiments based on current technology."

Although Harvard has had difficulty deciding exactly what constitutes a conflict of interest, one degree of affiliation is firmly opposed. As Henry Rosovsky, dean of the Faculty, says, a professor "cannot become an operating officer of a company--he can be a director, but not in a line operating position."

Because of this rule, Gilbert last March announced that he will leave the Faculty in order to devote himself full time to Biogen, a company he founded several years ago. Gilbert had tried to balance his teaching responsibilities with his duties as chief executive officer of the firm, but admitted, "you can't do both at once." Although Rosovsky says the University regretted losing the renowned researcher, he added "[Both he and I] were clear about what our rules are and he could not stay with those rules."

Last April, President Bok flew to California to meet with industry representatives and officials from four other major universities in order to draw up a comprehensive set of guidelines for regulating academic-industrial ties. Most officials feel that the resulting guidelines were left deliberately vague to allow each university to develop its own. As Daniel Braton, chairman of the department of Cellular and Molecular Biology says, "These guidelines are so vague and general that they merely represent an attempt on the part of the administration and industry to avoid getting anything down in terms of firm guidelines for work at universities."

At Harvard, a committee appointed by Rosovsky has been working on drawing up guidelines for Harvard's relations with biological industry. Paul C. Martin, chairman of the Technology Transfer Advisory Group, says its mem-will present their reports to him today.

Because of the controversy surrounding the academic-industry relationship, many companies are striving to attain "in-house" capacities, which would leave them more self-sufficient and as independent from universities as possible. An official of Biotechnica says that since the company is just now building permanent labs, many of its employees are still maintaining their academic posts. But he adds that after the labs are completed, many of the researchers plan to leave their jobs to join the company full-time. Although the companies are drawing away some untenured professors, post-docs, and technicians, most professors believe that universities are not being drained because the huge market that has developed has lessened the tight crunch in finding positions for graduates. The companies offer much higher financial rewards and have been quite successful in recruiting from graduate student ranks.

Schmergl says that nontenured professors who consult for his company often join it full-time if they don't get tenure. Although most administrators are not yet worried about the potential drain on universities, one dean of the University of California at Berkely says it is "scary" competing with companies rather than with other universities for personnel. Robert M. Glaeser, divisional dean of the biological sciences notes that the companies have a financial advantage which is corrupting the "value of science knowledge and process in biology" He feels the value of science at the universities "will diminish accordingly" Although his university has not drawn up guidelines for the biotechnological area professors are not supposed to become directors of companies and at the same time maintain full professorships with the university.

Glaeser cities Edward Pinhole associate professor of Bio-chemistry at Berkeley as an example of someone drawn away by outside industry. Penhoet recently asked for a reduction of his position at Berkeley to adjunct professor so that he could spend more time with the biotechnological company he had just founded. Penhoet will lose his tenure and have his salary cut, but he says he wants to decrease his involvement on campus to "span the two worlds." It is not possible to surround a university with a most," he says, adding that interaction between universities and industry is vital to the development of science.

Professors do not believe that cases like Gilbert and Penhoet represent a trend for professors leaving academics to join business. Most professors say they want to maintain a happy medium between both world. And graduate students and post-docs faced with the decision feel they are now presented with more attractive offers than ever before.

Since the openings in universities are limited, the students say industry offers them a secure job after graduation. Students in Ausubel's, Ptashne's, and Gilbert's labs say that there are both "pluses and minuses" in the new industry, which has just recently spread to the area of agricultural research.

But graduate students have mixed opinions of their professor's activities. Some say the professors are available at request and that they do not miss their professors' absence since they do mostly independent research. One student in Ausubel's lab says he has heard miserable tales from students who felt that they had been neglected, but he adds that he likes the arrangement since the industrial opportunities available to Ausubel siphon down to him. If Ausubel doesn't have time to write a story about his research for a popular magazine, the student says, he often asks one of his students to write it. This activity, the student says, is a good exposure to the benefits of private industry.

Although most of Harvard's graduates students plan to remain in academics, the majority concur with Gilbert's statement that biotechnology is a phase in developing an "industry out of science" Gilbert adds that in biotechnology is a phase in developing an "industry out of science" Gilbert adds that in biology today--as in other fields at other times--industry is taking "science out of what is an ivory lower and showing it has serious application in the world and a serious impact on society".

Mary S. Hunter and John D. Solomon assisted with the reporting of this article.

An informal University policy forbidding professors from serving as operating officers of companies forced Nobel laureate Walter Gilbert to announce his departure this spring. Gilbert had tried to balance his teaching responsibilities with his duties as chief executive officer of Biogen, but admitted 'you can't do both at once.'