THE genetic blueprint of a bacterium linked with the development of stomach ulcers and gastric cancer is being kept secret by drugs companies desperate to prevent rivals cashing in on the information. Academic researchers studying the bacterium Helicobacter pylori are furious that the data are not being made public.
The researchers say that if they knew the genetic make-up of H. pylori it would speed up the development of drugs and vaccines. They are also angry at delays in US government sponsored projects to sequence other important pathogenic bacteria, including those that cause TB and leprosy.
The two companies that possess the secrets of the H. pylori genome are Genome Therapeutics Corporation (GTC) of Waltham, Massachusetts, and the British company Glaxo-Wellcome. It took GTC just six months to work out the order of the 1.8 million nucleotide bases that make up the genome of H. pylori. At a conference in London last week, Bob Hennessey, the company鈥檚 chairman, said that GTC had sold the data for $22 million to Astra, a Swedish pharmaceuticals company that makes anti-ulcer drugs.
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鈥淏ecause they鈥檝e paid significant money for this, Astra will have extensive rights to exploit it,鈥� says Hennessey. A committee made up of representatives from GTC and Astra will decide whether to make selected data available to academics, and on what terms. 鈥淚t may be that they will share the database with academics in exchange for first rights to negotiate a deal on anything [they discover] that鈥檚 exploitable,鈥� says Hennessey. 鈥淟ike it or not, we have a responsibility to our investors.鈥�
Glaxo-Wellcome, which independently sequenced the bacterium鈥檚 genome, will decide in the next few weeks whether to publish its data. It has been working on the genome for four years in collaboration with Sydney Brenner of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. Most of the laborious sequencing work was carried out in Singapore.
Other researchers are angry that they are being denied access to genetic information of such value. 鈥淚 think it stinks,鈥� says Stewart Cole, head of the bacterial molecular genetics unit at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. 鈥淚 can understand people trying to make money, but a lot of these projects are built on knowledge, insight, materials and goodwill coming from the public sector,鈥� he says. Cole himself, for example, supplied GTC with colonies of the bacteria that cause leprosy and TB. 鈥淚t鈥檚 galling that not only has it been done in private, it鈥檚 been done twice,鈥� he says.
Douglas Berg, who is a bacterial geneticist and H. pylori specialist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, says that the sequence is 鈥渨orse than useless鈥� in private hands because the government will not fund a duplicate project. 鈥淲hy should the National Institutes of Health pay for something that鈥檚 already been done?鈥� he says.
Berg also rejected the idea of 鈥渄oing a deal鈥� with GTC. 鈥淚f I can鈥檛 have complete access to the sequence and if the rest of the academic community can鈥檛, I don鈥檛 want to make any private arrangements to get it,鈥� he says. 鈥淔or me, it鈥檚 very uncitizenlike to keep it secret.鈥�
A spokesman for Astra defended the decision to withhold the data. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 regarded as a necessity to keep it secret, it will be kept that way,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e are simply protecting our commercial investment.鈥�
TB and leprosy researchers, meanwhile, are irritated that GTC has not yet completed and published the genome sequences of Mycobacterium leprae, which causes leprosy, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes TB. The sequencing of both organisms was commissioned and paid for four years ago by the NIH. One condition of the NIH鈥檚 $5-million grant was that results would be made public within six months of the project鈥檚 completion.
鈥淭he M. leprae and M. tuberculosis data will be made available,鈥� says Hennessey of GTC. 鈥淲e鈥檝e sequenced significant portions of the M. tuberculosis genome.鈥�
Barry Bloom of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, one of the world鈥檚 leading TB researchers, is disappointed with progress so far. 鈥淢y understanding is that GTC has sequenced about 60 per cent of the M. leprae genome and has done next to nothing for the past three years on the TB genome,鈥� he says.
Bloom鈥檚 colleague Bill Jacobs says that despite having sequenced 60 per cent of M. leprae, GTC has only deposited half of this on the public database. 鈥淲here鈥檚 the rest?鈥� he asks.
Bloom and Jacobs say that, to their knowledge, GTC has only sequenced 40 000 of the 4 million nucleotide bases that make up the M. tuberculosis genome.
Both Jacobs and Hennessey expressed regret that a proposed deal between the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and GTC to develop drugs and vaccines from the genome information on M. tuberculosis had fallen through after protracted negotiations. Hennessey says: 鈥淚t鈥檚 a deal that should have happened, and it鈥檚 a tragedy for tuberculosis research that it hasn鈥檛.鈥�
Bloom hopes that other genome sequencing organisations will come forward to help complete the work. He has raised $1 million from a leprosy charity towards the sequencing of M. leprae.