December 21, 1998

Scott Jaschik

Managing Editor

 

Chronicle of Higher Education

1255 23rd Street N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20037

Dear Editor:

The article on Berkeley's research agreement with the Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute (NADI) is surprising. It is surprising, not so much because of its attempt to manufacture controversy, but because of the people from whom Ms. Blumenstyk chose to elicit criticism. Each seems to come with a preconceived aversion to either public-private research agreements or biotechnology -- or both. More importantly, they speak with little understanding of the facts and principles that underlie the Berkeley/Novartis agreement.

The University of California is a public asset of immense value. Its value, however, is enhanced, not diminished when it works creatively with other institutions. The alliance with NADI is just such a creative relationship.

Our first motivation for seeking this alliance is our commitment to provide first-rate graduate education to our students in Plant and Microbial Biology. Without access to the information technologies, databases, and gene sequences that exist nowhere in the public sector, this commitment could not be fulfilled. Hence, the NADI alliance.

Second, we recently established a new program in Microbial Biology where extraordinary opportunities exist for fundamental discoveries over the course of the next century. Even though the college was able to secure the faculty positions for this new program, no infrastructure support or, more importantly, support for graduate fellowships and research assistantships were available from any source, including the campus, the state, and other public institutions. Hence, the NADI alliance.

Third, we wanted access to intellectual capital that would not only complement our own, but allow us also to preserve and enhance our values and our culture. Hence, our insistence on the unrestricted funding provided by the NADI agreement.

Fourth, we wanted to establish a public-private relationship which would allow the campus to capture a more significant portion of the value that is created by public research university/private company research agreements. As a result, we incorporated competitive economic principles, constrained by our public values and culture, in our selection of a partner.

Fifth, we wanted to structure a collaboration that provided the private partner with no more effective rights than they would have if this agreement did not exist. As a public research University, whatever we generate in the way of discoveries should be broadly available to the general public, including NADI. For this reason, the agreement allows NADI a first right to negotiate and then only for a portion of the discoveries that might emerge. Even without the agreement NADI would have the right to negotiate on all discoveries, just not a first right (contrary to the article, the agreement does not assure a first right to license).

That said, let me briefly address the criticism. It is interesting, for example, that although thirty out of thirty two scientists in the department signed onto the agreement, your reporter interviewed and quoted the two who did not and ignored the 30 who did.

Indeed, while even a cursory reading of the agreement, which is publicly available to anyone including your reporter, would have resolved many of the concerns raised in the story, your reporter chose instead to interview a range of people who themselves had no knowledge of the agreement.

"I know absolutely nothing about the agreement," Margaret Mellon conceded when asked if she had read the report. "And I told the Chronicle reporter I have no specific knowledge of the agreement." That did not keep your reporter from quoting Ms. Mellon's insistence that this agreement would allow "the private sector to engulf the public sector."

"You can tell my instincts and my point of view," added Ms. Mellon, speaking for the Union of Concerned Scientists. In Ms. Mellon's case, her distrust extends not only to this agreement, but to research funding by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the practices of the U.S. Patent Office.

Instead of seeking out informed, disinterested observers, Ms. Blumenstyk simply rounded up the usual suspects. Their instincts and point of view are, as Ms. Mellon concedes, all too apparent. Thus, your reporter quotes Monica Moore of the Pesticide Action Network who says the agreement will lessen the capacity for disinterested science. Ms. Moore, and your reporter, may be pleasantly surprised to know that none of the scientists involved work with pesticides. And if she had read the agreement, Ms. Moore might also be pleased to find that all of the money goes to support basic, non-directed research, and the committee which disperses the research funds is controlled by the University, not NADI.

The story says that this agreement lacks protections for academic freedom found in the Washington University-Monsanto arrangement. If she had read the agreement, your reporter would have learned that it provides for an external review every two and a half years, not every three years as does the Washington-Monsanto agreement.

The story suggests that faculty are afraid to speak out because they fear they will be denied promotion, research funding, etc. Anyone even vaguely familiar with Berkeley would know that its illustrious faculty are not loathe to speak their mind about anything. And any dean who attempted to punish them for doing so would not remain dean for long.

Your reporter quotes Students for Responsible Research (SRR), and she says that 400 students signed a petition opposing the deal. In fact, the petition that SRR sent to various campus officials contained 47 signatures, not 400. There are 1,100 students in the College of Natural Resources and over 30,000 students at Berkeley. This is, by any standard, a tempest in a very small teapot.

"Where," asks Chuck Hassebook, of the Center for Rural Affairs, "is the public interest in these arrangements?" Even without reading the agreement, Mr. Hassebook should know that the public interest at the University of California, Berkeley resides, as it does at all great universities, in the integrity of the faculty.

The faculty members who have signed onto this agreement include five members of the National Academy of Sciences, six fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and three fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. These are not people who trade their reputation for research support.

And, if Mr. Hassebook and the others had bothered to read the agreement, they would have learned that the university will own all the patents that flow from this research and the public will benefit from the royalties that flow from commercialization.

Finally, let me address the issue of the University's land grant mission. That mission, which specifically directs the University to work cooperatively with private industry, is enhanced by this agreement. And the broad and enthusiastic support for it from the California agricultural community, none of whom were interviewed by your reporter, attests to that.

Our primary concern is that as California agriculture moves into a new millennium, California's leading public research university, and the public interest it represents, be it the forefront. This agreement, the most carefully vetted and closely watched in the history of this campus, will help ensure that happens.

Sincerely,

 

Gordon Rausser/