§ Mr. PawseyTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the United Kingdom position on patenting of sequences of the human genome.
§ Mr. Alan HowarthThe United Kingdom Government recognise that work on human genome sequencing has great potential both for the advancement of the understanding of human biology at the most fundamental level and for the delivery of medical advances for the 179W public good. They wish to promote a climate in which the scientific and industrial communities in the United Kingdom and internationally can play a full part in realising that potential, while recognising that there are genuine ethical concerns which must be respected.
It is accepted that research will be most rapidly and effectively progressed in a spirit of full international collaboration. The Government take the view that this would be greatly facilitated by an international agreement that no country should seek patents on genome sequences of unknown utility identified as a result of publicly-funded research. The United Kingdom will pursue an international agreement to that end.
In the absence of such agreement, however, a decision by the United Kingdom Medical Research Council not to seek patents when researchers funded by public bodies in other countries have or may do so could place the United Kingdom at a relative disadvantage. The Medical Research Council has, therefore, decided that it should file patent applications on certain sequences in order to protect the United Kingdom position, while allowing researchers early access to its sequence data. The council has made clear that if and when an international agreement not to patent is reached, it will waive its actual or potential rights in this area.