Subject: Du Pont and Cetus Fight Over Patents On New Genetic Tool
Date: Published: 12/18/89 (70 lines)
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    Biotech Battle:
    Du Pont and Cetus
    Fight Over Patents
    On New Genetic Tool
    ---
    Giant Aims to Strip Tiny Firm
    Of Its Exclusive Rights
    To Breakthrough Method
    ---
    Did MIT Crew Get Idea First?  
    ----
    By Marilyn Chase
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    EMERYVILLE, Calif.  -- Kary B. Mullis may go down in
 scientific history as the inventor of one of the most
 extraordinary new tools in biotechnology.  But he is going to
 have to fight for the title in a battle that pits him and his
 former employer, Cetus Corp., against giant Du Pont Co. 
    The tool is PCR -- or polymerase chain reaction -- a feat
 of biological alchemy that empowers scientists to zero in on
 a specific gene, like the proverbial needle in a haystack,
 and multiply it a billionfold.  Swiftly adopted by
 researchers, PCR is now widely used in the screening and
 diagnosis of hereditary diseases, in AIDS research, in
 criminal identification, and in the mammoth project to
 decipher the human genetic code.
    Du Pont, spurned in its efforts to license the technology
 from Cetus, which holds several patents on PCR, is taking the
 tiny company to court to try to strip it of those patents.  At
 stake in this dispute is monopoly control of a major new
 market.  "In the diagnostics field, we think market sales
 could be#
illion within 10 years, and we will benefit from
 royalties," says William Gerber, vice president and general
 manager of the PCR division at Cetus.
    Du Pont has been trying to enter new, potentially large
 biotechnology markets for some time; PCR's appeal was
 obvious.  But Cetus chose instead to ally itself through
 partnerships with Hoffmann-La Roche, a unit of Roche Holdings
 Ltd.  of Switzerland and Perkin-Elmer Corp. Du Pont seeks to
 invalidate the company's patents, arguing that Cetus wasn't
 the first to conceive PCR because an obscure scientific
 paper, published 19 years ago, alluded to the coveted
 technique.
    The case shows how companies wield patent law as a
 two-edged weapon in their battle for market share,
 potentially destroying as well as creating a proprietary
 advantage.  The case undoubtedly will prove pivotal to
 biotechnology by settling ownership of an invention Cetus
 proudly claims "revolutionized molecular biology."
    Few scientists would quarrel with that assessment.  From
 combing through the DNA of woolly mammoths to unlocking the
 genetic legacy of Egyptian mummies, new uses arise weekly.
 "It's a spectacular tool," says Jerome Groopman, a researcher
 at New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston, who uses PCR to
 evaluate new AIDS drugs.
    Francis Collins, the University of Michigan scientist who
 recently identified the mutant gene that causes cystic
 fibrosis, says, "We would have been hard pressed to do that
 without PCR."

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