The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation—UW-Madison's fundraising arm—is loosening its policies in hopes of increasing stem cell research opportunities and funding, foundation officials announced Tuesday.
WARF changed its policy to allow academic and non-profit institutions to perform industry-sponsored research without a license, something that was previously only allowed in Wisconsin-based institutions.
However, the foundation will still require companies to purchase a license when conducting stem cell research in private laboratories and pay royalties to WARF if they bring products to the market. Also, WARF will now allow researchers to transfer stem cells among themselves for free, an operation that used to result in lofty fees.
The previously required research licenses cosT between $75,000 and $400,000, depending on the size of the company funding the universities and nonprofit institutions.
WARF's control over stem cell research has elicited criticism from other national organizations. WARF currently holds key patent rights over embryonic stem-cell technology.
UW-Madison researcher James Thomson's work led to the first successful isolation of human embryonic stem cell lines in 1998, which eventually gave WARF control over research patents in the United States.
""The technology was developed here and assigned to WARF,"" said WARF Managing Director Carl Gulbrandsen.
The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a California-based consumer watchdog organization, challenged three WARF patents on July 17, 2006, resulting in a reexamination of the patents by the Public Patent Foundation that is still in process.
FTCR Stem Cell Project Director John Simpson said he thinks WARF patent rights should be revoked and that current policy changes are not enough.
""They are good steps forward that will open up stem cell research and it's good for research,"" said Simpson. ""However, it clearly demonstrates that the policies they were following previously were detrimental to stem cell research. I think it's crystal clear that their reaction came about because we brought the challenges.""
Gulbrandsen said the policy changes were a result of talks with scientists over the past year and ""not a response to scientists that disagreed with what we had been doing in the past.""
Simpson said that FTCR supports the policy changes WARF has currently made, but he thinks WARF should completely abandon its claims on patents.
""We believe they are overreaching, the aren't recognized anywhere else in they world,"" Simpson said, regarding the stem cell technologies.
FTCR officials declared in October that Thomson's stem cell technologies were obvious and had already been achieved by other research scientists in 1981; therefore, the patents should be considered invalid.
""They will ultimately not be upheld,"" Simpson said of WARF's patent controls.
