BioCentury
ARTICLE | Strategy

Slings and arrows

October 25, 1999 7:00 AM UTC

Last year Lexicon published in Nature the method used to generate the company's OmniBank library of mutant ES cell clones, which can be used to produce mice defective for specific genes of interest (see BioCentury, April 13, 1998). The published mutant cell lines have been made available to 27 academic institutions under the approved MTA. But the company now is taking heat in Nature in a dispute with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

Lawrence Goldstein, an HHMI investigator at the University of California (San Diego) requested a cell line from Lexicon, which has two MTAs for academic licensing, one for unpublished materials that includes an upfront fee, and one for published materials that does not. Both MTAs include reach-through rights on commercial use of the materials. However, according to Goldstein, negotiations between Lexicon and HHMI broke down and HHMI informed him that the institute was not able to agree on acceptable terms for the transfer...