Bioprospecting
Unit 5
Bioprospecting is a term describing the process of discovery and commercialization of new products based on biological resources. Bioprospecting often draws on indigenous (native to a country) knowledge about uses and characteristics of plants and animals. In this way, bioprospecting includes biopiracy, the exploitative appropriation of indigenous forms of knowledge by commercial actors, as well as the search for previously unknown compounds in organisms that have never been used in traditional medicine.
Biopiracy is a situation where indigenous knowledge of nature, originating with indigenous peoples, is used by others for profit, without permission from and with little or no compensation or recognition to the indigenous people themselves. For example when bioprospectors draw on indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants which is later patented by medical companies without recognizing the fact that the knowledge is not new, or invented by the patenter, and depriving the indigenous community to the rights to commercial exploitation of the technology that they themselves had developed..
Famous cases
The Maya ICBG controversy
The Maya ICBG bioprospecting controversy took place in 1999-2000, when the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group led by Ethnobiologist Dr. Brent Berlin was accused of being engaged in unethical forms of bioprospecting by several NGOs and indigenous organizations. The ICBG aimed to document the biodiversity of Chiapas, Mexico and the ethnobotanical knowledge of the indigenous Maya people - in order to ascertain whether there were possibilities of developing medical products based on any of the plants used by the indigenous groups.
The Maya ICBG case was among the first to draw attention to the problems of distinguishing between benign forms of bioprospecting and unethical biopiracy, and to the difficulties of securing community participation and prior informed consent for would-be bioprospectors.
The rosy periwinkle
The rosy periwinkle case dates from the 1950s. The rosy periwinkle, while native to Madagascar, had been widely introduced into other tropical countries around the world well before the discovery of vincristine. This meant that researchers could obtain local knowledge from one country and plant samples from another. The locally known medical properties of the plant were not the same as the medical properties discovered and commercially used by Eli Lilly. The use of the plant as a cure for diabetes was the original stimulus for research, but cures for cancer were the most important results. Different countries are reported as having acquired different beliefs about the medical properties of the plant.
The neem tree
In 1995, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a pharmaceutical research firm received a patent on a technique to extract an antifungal agent from the neem tree (Azadirachtaindica), which grows throughout India and Nepal; Indian villagers have long understood the tree's medicinal value. Although the patent had been granted on an extraction technique, the Indian press described it as a patent on the neem tree itself; the result was widespread public outcry, echoed throughout the developing world. Legal action by the Indian government followed, with the patent eventually being overturned in 2005.
Importantly, the pharmaceutical company involved in the neem case argued that as traditional Indian knowledge of the properties of the neem tree had never been published in an academic journal, such knowledge did not amount to "prior art" (prior art is the term used when previously existing knowledge bars a patent). Public knowledge and public disclosure (including oral or written descriptions) are considered prior art in most countries.
The Enola bean
The Enola bean is a variety of Mexican yellow bean, so called after the wife of the man who patented it in 1999. The allegedly distinguishing feature of the variety is seeds of a specific shade of yellow. The patent-holder was shocked when export sales immediately dropped over 90% among importers that had been selling these beans for years, causing economic damage to more than 22,000 farmers in northern Mexico who depended on sales of this bean.A lawsuit was filed on behalf of the farmers, and on April 14, 2005 the US-PTO ruled in favor of the farmers. An appeal was heard on 16 January 2008, and the patent was revoked in May 2008. An appeal to the court against the revocation was unsuccessful (Decided October 2009).
Basmati riceIn 2000, the US corporation RiceTec (a subsidiary of RiceTec AG of Liechtenstein) attempted to patent certain hybrids of basmati rice and semidwarf long-grain rice (see U.S. Patent No. 5,663,484). The Indian government intervened and several claims of the patent were invalidated. Meanwhile, the European Commission has agreed to protect basmati riceunder its regulations pertaining to geographical indications.
HoodiaHoodia, a succulent plant, originates from the Kalahari Desert of South Africa. For generations it has been known to the traditionally living San people as an appetite suppressant. In 1996 South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research began working with medical companies to develop dietary supplements based on hoodia. Originally the San people were not planned to receive any benefits from the commercialization of their traditional knowledge, but in 2003 the South African San Council made an agreement with CSIR in which they would receive from 6 to 8% of the revenue from the sale of Hoodia products.
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