WARF sues to preserve stem cell access

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday, Aug. 13, to ensure broad research access to the five stem cell lines developed by researcher James Thomson.

The lawsuit against Geron Corporation of Menlo Park, Calif., seeks to have the court declare that Geron has no right to add additional cell types to its license agreement with WARF.

WARF, a non-profit Wisconsin corporation that licenses patents for the benefit of research at the university, has licensed certain rights for human embryonic stem cells to Geron since 1999.

Geron has told WARF that WARF is obligated to add additional cell types to Geron’s license agreement on an exclusive basis. WARF disagrees with Geron’s claim and has sought court intervention to resolve this issue.

“It is important that WARF continue to license additional stem cell types to a wide variety of researchers,” says Carl Gulbrandsen, WARF’s managing director.

Gulbrandsen says Geron’s attempts to secure exclusive use of additional cell types, if successful, would preclude the use of important stem cell types by other researchers in the pharmaceutical, medical and scientific communities.

“Through this action we hope to enable more academic researchers and private companies to join the search for new therapies and cures for some of the world’s most debilitating diseases,” Gulbrandsen says. “We hope that federal funding and appropriate access to stem cells will increase the number of researchers who work with human embryonic stem cells. A greater number of good researchers promise to bring the medicine of tomorrow closer to today.”

“The university supports WARF’s efforts to provide more opportunity for stem cell research,” Chancellor John Wiley says. “This action will ensure that future research is conducted in the public interest by preserving the broadest access to these original stem cell lines.”

Embryonic stem cell lines were first successfully established late in 1998 by a team of scientists headed by developmental biologist Thomson.

The work was supported in large part by Geron Corp., but the patents that govern the technology and use of the cells are held by WARF.

More than 100 academic researchers and numerous companies have approached WARF about licensing stem cell technology in the past two years.

Embryonic stem cells are of great interest to medicine and science because of their ability to develop into virtually any other cell made by the human body. The first potential applications of human embryonic stem cell technology may be in the area of drug discovery. In addition, the ability to grow human tissue of all kinds opens the door to treating a range of cell-based diseases and to growing medically important tissues that can be used for transplantation purposes.

The federal lawsuit was filed in Madison, Wis. and assigned to Judge Barbara Crabb. The complaint seeks a declaratory judgment.
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