Genentech switches on biodiversity pact

Genentech Inc. said it has joined a business-environmental coalition that is urging the Clinton administration to sign the Convention on Biodiversity that was rejected by the Bush Administration in part on urging from biotech companies opposed to technology transfer provisions of the treaty.

GNE, among other biotech companies, initially had opposed the treaty on the ground that it did not provide sufficient protection for intellectual property rights. The White House, however, has expressed interest in attaching an "interpretive statement" to the treaty that would construe the key sections of the treaty in a way that protects U.S. interests in technology transfer portions of the treaty...