July 2, 2001

By ANDREW POLLACK

pioneering database of human genes is now available for licensing again. But Human Genome Sciences (news/quote), which controls the database, no longer plans to offer broad access to the data, the company's chairman and chief executive, William A. Haseltine, said over the weekend.

The genomics business came of age in 1993, when SmithKline Beecham agreed to pay $125 million for access to Human Genome Sciences' database of human genes. Access was subsequently provided to four other pharmaceutical companies, bringing nearly $150 million in additional payments to Human Genome Sciences, based in Rockville, Md.

But those deals all expired on Saturday, and rights to the data reverted to Human Genome Sciences. That has set off speculation about how the company will use the potentially valuable data.

Dr. Haseltine said Human Genome would no longer offer other companies access to all the data. Rather, it will use the data to help its own drug development efforts. Then, he said, Human Genome will license to other companies the rights to specific drugs or to narrow classes of drugs.

The decision reflects the shift in the company's strategy from providing data and technology to other companies to developing its own drugs. Investors value drug companies more highly than genomics technology companies, so many other genomics companies are trying to make a similar shift.

In addition, although Dr. Haseltine asserts that the database still has great untapped value, it is certainly not as rare as it was in 1993. Many more sources of gene information are now available.

The database contains information on 90,000 human genes, Dr. Haseltine said. Scientists who sequenced the entire human genome estimate there are only about 30,000 genes, but Dr. Haseltine says those scientists are wrong.

Genes carry the instructions for making proteins. Human Genome Sciences found its genes by catching cells in the act of making the proteins, without knowing at first what the genes did. The fact that such uncharacterized genes could be used to help develop drugs — rather than working backward to find the proteins and genes after understanding the disease — was a radical notion at first.

Now, genomics is widely used, although there is still debate on how effective the approach is. Human Genome Sciences has three drugs in clinical trials derived from its database. But its five big pharmaceutical partners have only one among them — a GlaxoSmithKline (news/quote) cardiovascular drug in early testing.

In a news release to be issued today, Human Genome Sciences says its partners are collectively pursuing 430 programs involving about 280 different genes for the creation of drugs that act on the proteins produced by those genes, as well as 30 cases in which the protein itself would serve as the drug. Besides GlaxoSmithKline, the other companies are Schering-Plough (news/quote), Takeda Chemical Industries of Japan, Merck (news/quote) of Germany and Sanofi-Synthelabo of France.

The companies will be able to continue their work on those existing programs. They will pay royalties to Human Genome Sciences on any drugs that reach the market.

Category: 52. Genetic Banks and Databases