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Inevitable and desirable
ImmunologyToday,
125
vol. 4, No. 5, 1983
Immunotechnology and Industry In 1980, the year Immunology Todaybegan, around 80 advertisements in Scienceoffered jobs to postdoctoral scientists with experience of different aspects of immunology. 80 % of them were in academic institutions universities, medical schools, research units and the like - while the remaining 20% were in industry. In 1982 the corresponding number of job offers was around 120 and industry supplied fully half of them - an indication of a three-fold increase in total recruitment.
This change alone would justify an examination of the evolving relationship between the acquisition of immunological expertise - a process that takes place very largely in academic institutions and its use in a commercial context. But an additional and demanding reason is the extent to which universities are turning to industry for funds to top up diminishing public support for basic research. Already many universities in several countries have entered into arrangements with industrial companies that involve substantial sums, and others seem likely to follow. The techniques and concepts of immunology, along with molecular biology and biochemistry, are prominent among the tools which have helped to forge these links. In the following pages a number of correspondents examine the issues raised by the commercialization of immunological research. In general they express guarded approval of the development of
closer links between academia and industry, and optimism that a shared understanding can be reached without fundamental damage to the value system of either. It is clear, however, that academia stands to lose far more than industry if the arrangements for their co-operation are badly handled. Industry's goal is not the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, as the university's traditionally has been, but the pursuit of proprietary advantage. At present, recombinant DNA and monoclonal antibody technologies are still new enough and pregnant enough with possibilities to ensure that industrial interest in them is maintained, and with it the funds for a certain amount of openended research. But this support will substitute for only a fraction of the public funds universities now receive and it will last only as long as hard-headed commercial sense dictates it should. When industry support diminishes - as sooner
A c a d e m i c / i n d u s t r i a l p a r t n e r s h i p s in the U S A
Inevitable and desirable* from M a r i l y n Bach and Ray T h o r n t o n Biomedical research in the USA has entered a new era in which muhimilliondollar alliances have been made by academic institutions with commerical firms. If traditional academic values will be discarded or distorted, if secrecy will replace openness of scientific interchange, if the cream of the biomedical faculty will be lured from the universities - or remain there bearing a taint of conflict of interest- there is a basis for serious concern. But in our view these new relationships are not only inevitable but opportune and desirable, and the predicted dire consequences can be averted. This hopeful prospect is supported by the experience of earlier industry-academia relationships in the fields of chemistry, engineering and electronics.
*This is an abridged version of a paper which appears in the April 1983 issue of The Educational Record, published by the American Council on Education, One Dupont Circle, Washington DC 20036, USA.
Inevitability Interest and support for biomedical research has been drawn from industry on a quite unprecedented scale by the promise of wide commercial applicability o f - and large profits from - technologies such as recombinant DNA and hybridoma. The incentive needed was the 1980 Supreme Court ruling that a live, human-made micro-organism is patentable subject matter. The products of both recombinant DNA and hybridoma technology are therefore patentable. Meanwhile, federal funding, particularly by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has become unable to support any further expansion of biomedical research or to even assure its maintenance at present levels. The NIH provide about 70% of the federal s.upport and nearly 40% of the national support for health research, while in colleges and universities it supports nearly 67% of health research and development. But the number of NIH awards has
or later it will - the universities may again face hard times. Neither renewed generosity from the public purse nor a continuous stream of commercially exploitable invention can be relied upon to sustain them. The universities must therefore remain able to adapt to changing financial circumstances and in this respect their most valuable asset is their traditional role as places of teaching and free and open enquiry. This independence benefits industry as well as the universities and is a renewable resource. Yet there are signs of its tarnishing- the most obvious being the growth in secrecy among immunologists and other academics doing work with commercially exploitable possibilities. How tragic it will be if such an asset is dissipated in the current scramble for financial advantage by academics and the institutions which employ them. JOHN R. INGLIS Editor
declined by almost 33% from a peak in 1979. As a percentage of the total number of applications judged eligible for support by peer review, the drop in awards has been even sharper, from 59% in 1972 and 60% in 1975 to an estimated 27% for 1983. Between 1972 and 1983, the number of eligible applications increased by about 150% but awards rose by only 13%. During this same period the average size of traditional research projects in constant 1972 dollars has remained level at around $47 700. From 1953 to the present, NIH appropriations showed a twenty-fold increase (in constant 1971 dollars) but most of this occurred before 1963 and all of it before 1973. From 1973 to 1979, appropriations barely kept pace with inflation, and since 1979 to 1983 they have not even done that, declining in constant dollars by 14%. The 1983 NIH budget of $3.748 billion shows an increase of only $109 million or only 3% over the 1982 level. But that is a 3% decrease in constant dollars. In early NIH budget history munificent annual increases built a critical mass of human talent and the current knowledge base for biomedical research. But these years of explosive growth are over and given the enthu-
198~, Elsexler Slienl'e Publishers B V , A m s t e r d a m
Olb7
4!~19/81 $0i (){!
126 siastic support from both political parties for reduced federal spending - except in defence - the NIH are unlikely to support a new period of significant expansion of health research. Exacerbating this bleak outlook for academia is the fact that indirect costs of biomedical research have been increasing even faster than direct costs, from about 15% of the total in 1965, to almost 30% in 1981. In constant dollars, available funds for direct costs have declined since 1972. Now, to contain the increase in indirect costs, the Administration has made a tentative decision (effective for FY1983 only) to reduce from 100% to 90 % the amount of allowable indirect costs reimbursable by the Department of Health and H u m a n Services (DHHS). If this plan is implemented, institutions that have budgeted for these costs, which are an integral part of the performance of biomedical research, will have to find other ways to meet them. Recent decisions also mean that N I H extramural funds are available for competition by small businesses and scientists from industry. In these straitened circumstances, therefore, the world of academia must face some harsh facts. Only the most successfully competitive of the researchintensive institutions (and investigators in those institutions) will be able, on the basis of N I H funding, to carry on business as usual - far fewer will think seriously about expansion. The less competitive institutions will suffer severe cutbackS, with some able and successful investigators being forced out of the system entirely. The present concentration of expertise in the leading academic institutions may intensify and the transfer of key junior and senior staff from academia to industry - attracted not only by monetary rewards but by upto-date equipment and facilities, and freedom from writing grants - can be expected to continue. At this time, therefore, academia must vigorously look for alternate sources of support and cost sharing. It is fortunate that industry is able, ready and even eager to step into the breach.
Development and commercialization: the' special province of industry Neither federal government, in general, nor academic institutions fully support the development of inventions that arise as a 'spin-off' of basic research. The N I H support activities defined as 'basic research' or'applied research and development' and the proportion of their funds allocated to basic research has slowly but constantly risen. Bringing an invention to the marketplace is the job of industry. Estimates of
Immunology Today, vol. 4, No. 5, 1983 the necessary capital vary widely and depend on the nature of the product. Development costs may be ten times that of 'making' the invention, and commercialization and marketing costs may be even higher - perhaps one-hundred times the cost of the specific basic research. To develop inventions resulting from work in academia, therefore, requires large amounts of risk capital, and that comes from private investors including large corporations• This investment can realistically only be attracted in circumstances where the intellectual property rights are sufficient to protect the risk investment. The investor must be offered an exclusive licence for a period of time sufficient to permit him to recoup investments and realize a profit, and universities must be in a position to grant such licences. By 1974, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (DHEW) had established institutional patent agreements with 70 research-intensive institutions granting them the right to elect to retain title to D H E W inventions made at these institutions. This policy strikingly accelerated the commercialization of inventions, and in 1980 it was essentially codified into law (the Patent and Trademark Amendments Act PL96517). Most research-intensive institutions already had institutional patent agreements before PL96-517 was enacted, but the law should enhance the transfer of the results of federally funded biomedical research to the public by facilitating the granting of exclusive licences - and hence the flow of capital for development and commercialization. In addition it provides, for the first time, direct authorization for federal agencies to license inventions that they own. What happens to inventions arising out of funds provided jointly by federal government and an industrial sponsor has yet to be fully resolved. Commercial firms may not be willing to support university pro: jects that involve federal funds if the research is subject to statutory and regulatory requirements concerning allocation of rights and other considerations. New university/industrial partnerships in biomedical research could also be assisted by the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (PL 97-34). One of its intentions was to stimulate private capital investment in research and development, and the transfer of equipment from the industrial to the academic sector. PL 97-34 permits, among other things, a 25% tax credit for a firm's eligible research and development costs above ~.he average for a base period; it also increases deductions for charitable
contributions for donation of equipment by the manufacturer to an institution of higher education. However, these and other tax incentives for investment in academic research and development remain to be clarified before they can be properly exploited. Finally, and not least, industry and academia are drawn together because the technical knowledge of the inventor is often indispensable to developing and manufacturing the invention; in biomedical research the inventor is often located - and wishes to remain - in the university or non-profit-making organization. In sum, because academia has something to sell to industry, because prospects for support from the N I H for research in academia are grim and becoming grimmer, and because development and commercialization by industry generally require the continued participation of the academic investigator, the formation of academic/ industrial partnerships in biomedical research is inevitable. Such partnerships have already developed in fields of science such as chemistry, engineering and electronics, and active steps are taken within these disciplines to promote and support cooperative activities between industries and research universities•
Desirability These new academic/industrial partnerships are desirable to the academic world from several vantage points. More important, they will benefit the country as a whole if they allow the results of research done with public f u n d s to be more quickly applied to the actual protection of h u m a n health - assuming that disadvantageous side-effects can be avoided. The partnerships will also help the USA to retain or regain its worldwide lead in technological innovation, development and transfer. In this respect other countries, J a p a n in particular, are believed to have been more productive and efficient - and in those countries, relationships among governmental, academic and industrial institutions have been especially close. Finally, the increase in aggregate investment made possible by these partnerships, and the expansion of support at the applied end of the research spectrum, will free a continuing share of N I H money for the basic research which underpins applied research, development and transfer but which industry has less incentive to finance. Perhaps increased support by the industrial sector would permit the NIH, even in these more stringent times, to meet high-priority needs that cannot otherwise be met, and even to reaffirm its
127
Immunology Today, vol. 4, No. 5, 1983
previously stated goal o f ' stabilization' in more specific terms, the target of awarding 5 000 new and competing research project grants (investigatorinitiated awards) each year. The critical element in the present and future of the biomedical research enterprise is the prospect for support of training. Since 1971 the constant dollars appropriated for the N I H have increased by about 28 % but the constant dollars for training have decreased by approximately 60%. Where, therefore, will the support come from for trainees whose expertise could develop by work on present research projects? More alarmingly, what will be the long-range impact of continuing sharp cut-backs in training support? The 1983 budget will permit the training of 8 915 trainees - only 11% short of the N IH goal of 10 000 trainees, which is reckoned to be an essential critical mass necessary for a vital and effective training program. But this n u m b e r is surely far too low. It does not take full account of the new advances in those technologies, such as recombinant DNA and hybridoma, that in the next decade will create new job opportunities for trained biomedical research personnel. , Industry needs trained biomedical scientists and academia is the best indeed the only - environment for some types of training and for granting advanced degrees. It is in industry's selfinterest, therefore, to support advanced training in the academic environment (or partly in the industrial environment). In fact, since industry cannot fill the entire financial void left by the federal cut-backs, there is good reason to single out training as its highest priority. Compared with other research costs it is inexpensive; a great deal of value for the
industrial sector can be obtained at reasonable cost. Such participation will enable industry to identify the potential future leaders and performers of biomedical research at an early stage and to develop communication with them. Recognition of the need for support of training is reflected by the formation of a new biology foundation, the Life Sciences Research Foundation (LSRF), to award postdoctoral fellowships on a competitive basis. The founders of LSRF include distinguished academic biologists (many of whom have recently developed their own ties with industry) and, as 'founding sponsors', t-IoffmanLa Roche and Monsanto. Similarly, an important part of the agreement between the Stanford Department of Medicine and the Syntex Corporation is the provision of funds to hire young faculty members. David Baltimore, Director of the newly established Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, views the Institute as a 'unique opportunity to expand research activities and to add junior faculty members'. Industry currently supports approximately only 4 % of research and development at colleges and universities. Both industry and academia could benefit from an increase in that provision.
Avoiding the pitfalls Although we are confident that disastrous consequences of the new academic partnerships can be avoided, there are as yet no reliable answers to many outstanding questions. Several studies of the impact of existing partnerships are in progress from different vantage points: the federal, the congres-
sional, the N I H themselves and the universities. But the critical guidance needed by the industrial and academic communities will require an analysis of formidable breadth and depth. Perhaps the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Government-University Relationships in Support of Science will have the stature and the resources necessary to conduct the comprehensive and intensive inquiry that is so urgently called for - an inquiry that will compile the information that has not been assembled, including basic cost and expenditure data, and will offer well-founded and reasoned judgements as to how the enormous potential benefits of the academic/industrial partnerships can be realized and damaging effects on traditional academic values averted or, at least, minimized. But given the importance and urgency of the topic, a strong case can be made for organizing the study at as high a level and with as much prestige as possible. The best form for the undertaking could well be a presidentin commission, a status that would provide the strongest guarantee of access to all of the essential information now often held closely within the confines of particular industrial organizations and academic institutions. Such a study would certainly conclude that while conflicts of interest and increased secrecy of investigations in academic institutions supported by industrial funds are inherent risks in this new era of academic/industrial partnerships, they are not insurmountable. Marilyn L. Bach is a Visiting Fellow, American Council on Education, and Associate Professor, The University ofMinnesota; Ray Thornton is President, Arkansas State University, and Chairman, American Association for theAdvancernent of Sciawe.
125
vol. 4, No. 5, 1983
Immunotechnology and Industry In 1980, the year Immunology Todaybegan, around 80 advertisements in Scienceoffered jobs to postdoctoral scientists with experience of different aspects of immunology. 80 % of them were in academic institutions universities, medical schools, research units and the like - while the remaining 20% were in industry. In 1982 the corresponding number of job offers was around 120 and industry supplied fully half of them - an indication of a three-fold increase in total recruitment.
This change alone would justify an examination of the evolving relationship between the acquisition of immunological expertise - a process that takes place very largely in academic institutions and its use in a commercial context. But an additional and demanding reason is the extent to which universities are turning to industry for funds to top up diminishing public support for basic research. Already many universities in several countries have entered into arrangements with industrial companies that involve substantial sums, and others seem likely to follow. The techniques and concepts of immunology, along with molecular biology and biochemistry, are prominent among the tools which have helped to forge these links. In the following pages a number of correspondents examine the issues raised by the commercialization of immunological research. In general they express guarded approval of the development of
closer links between academia and industry, and optimism that a shared understanding can be reached without fundamental damage to the value system of either. It is clear, however, that academia stands to lose far more than industry if the arrangements for their co-operation are badly handled. Industry's goal is not the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, as the university's traditionally has been, but the pursuit of proprietary advantage. At present, recombinant DNA and monoclonal antibody technologies are still new enough and pregnant enough with possibilities to ensure that industrial interest in them is maintained, and with it the funds for a certain amount of openended research. But this support will substitute for only a fraction of the public funds universities now receive and it will last only as long as hard-headed commercial sense dictates it should. When industry support diminishes - as sooner
A c a d e m i c / i n d u s t r i a l p a r t n e r s h i p s in the U S A
Inevitable and desirable* from M a r i l y n Bach and Ray T h o r n t o n Biomedical research in the USA has entered a new era in which muhimilliondollar alliances have been made by academic institutions with commerical firms. If traditional academic values will be discarded or distorted, if secrecy will replace openness of scientific interchange, if the cream of the biomedical faculty will be lured from the universities - or remain there bearing a taint of conflict of interest- there is a basis for serious concern. But in our view these new relationships are not only inevitable but opportune and desirable, and the predicted dire consequences can be averted. This hopeful prospect is supported by the experience of earlier industry-academia relationships in the fields of chemistry, engineering and electronics.
*This is an abridged version of a paper which appears in the April 1983 issue of The Educational Record, published by the American Council on Education, One Dupont Circle, Washington DC 20036, USA.
Inevitability Interest and support for biomedical research has been drawn from industry on a quite unprecedented scale by the promise of wide commercial applicability o f - and large profits from - technologies such as recombinant DNA and hybridoma. The incentive needed was the 1980 Supreme Court ruling that a live, human-made micro-organism is patentable subject matter. The products of both recombinant DNA and hybridoma technology are therefore patentable. Meanwhile, federal funding, particularly by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has become unable to support any further expansion of biomedical research or to even assure its maintenance at present levels. The NIH provide about 70% of the federal s.upport and nearly 40% of the national support for health research, while in colleges and universities it supports nearly 67% of health research and development. But the number of NIH awards has
or later it will - the universities may again face hard times. Neither renewed generosity from the public purse nor a continuous stream of commercially exploitable invention can be relied upon to sustain them. The universities must therefore remain able to adapt to changing financial circumstances and in this respect their most valuable asset is their traditional role as places of teaching and free and open enquiry. This independence benefits industry as well as the universities and is a renewable resource. Yet there are signs of its tarnishing- the most obvious being the growth in secrecy among immunologists and other academics doing work with commercially exploitable possibilities. How tragic it will be if such an asset is dissipated in the current scramble for financial advantage by academics and the institutions which employ them. JOHN R. INGLIS Editor
declined by almost 33% from a peak in 1979. As a percentage of the total number of applications judged eligible for support by peer review, the drop in awards has been even sharper, from 59% in 1972 and 60% in 1975 to an estimated 27% for 1983. Between 1972 and 1983, the number of eligible applications increased by about 150% but awards rose by only 13%. During this same period the average size of traditional research projects in constant 1972 dollars has remained level at around $47 700. From 1953 to the present, NIH appropriations showed a twenty-fold increase (in constant 1971 dollars) but most of this occurred before 1963 and all of it before 1973. From 1973 to 1979, appropriations barely kept pace with inflation, and since 1979 to 1983 they have not even done that, declining in constant dollars by 14%. The 1983 NIH budget of $3.748 billion shows an increase of only $109 million or only 3% over the 1982 level. But that is a 3% decrease in constant dollars. In early NIH budget history munificent annual increases built a critical mass of human talent and the current knowledge base for biomedical research. But these years of explosive growth are over and given the enthu-
198~, Elsexler Slienl'e Publishers B V , A m s t e r d a m
Olb7
4!~19/81 $0i (){!
126 siastic support from both political parties for reduced federal spending - except in defence - the NIH are unlikely to support a new period of significant expansion of health research. Exacerbating this bleak outlook for academia is the fact that indirect costs of biomedical research have been increasing even faster than direct costs, from about 15% of the total in 1965, to almost 30% in 1981. In constant dollars, available funds for direct costs have declined since 1972. Now, to contain the increase in indirect costs, the Administration has made a tentative decision (effective for FY1983 only) to reduce from 100% to 90 % the amount of allowable indirect costs reimbursable by the Department of Health and H u m a n Services (DHHS). If this plan is implemented, institutions that have budgeted for these costs, which are an integral part of the performance of biomedical research, will have to find other ways to meet them. Recent decisions also mean that N I H extramural funds are available for competition by small businesses and scientists from industry. In these straitened circumstances, therefore, the world of academia must face some harsh facts. Only the most successfully competitive of the researchintensive institutions (and investigators in those institutions) will be able, on the basis of N I H funding, to carry on business as usual - far fewer will think seriously about expansion. The less competitive institutions will suffer severe cutbackS, with some able and successful investigators being forced out of the system entirely. The present concentration of expertise in the leading academic institutions may intensify and the transfer of key junior and senior staff from academia to industry - attracted not only by monetary rewards but by upto-date equipment and facilities, and freedom from writing grants - can be expected to continue. At this time, therefore, academia must vigorously look for alternate sources of support and cost sharing. It is fortunate that industry is able, ready and even eager to step into the breach.
Development and commercialization: the' special province of industry Neither federal government, in general, nor academic institutions fully support the development of inventions that arise as a 'spin-off' of basic research. The N I H support activities defined as 'basic research' or'applied research and development' and the proportion of their funds allocated to basic research has slowly but constantly risen. Bringing an invention to the marketplace is the job of industry. Estimates of
Immunology Today, vol. 4, No. 5, 1983 the necessary capital vary widely and depend on the nature of the product. Development costs may be ten times that of 'making' the invention, and commercialization and marketing costs may be even higher - perhaps one-hundred times the cost of the specific basic research. To develop inventions resulting from work in academia, therefore, requires large amounts of risk capital, and that comes from private investors including large corporations• This investment can realistically only be attracted in circumstances where the intellectual property rights are sufficient to protect the risk investment. The investor must be offered an exclusive licence for a period of time sufficient to permit him to recoup investments and realize a profit, and universities must be in a position to grant such licences. By 1974, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (DHEW) had established institutional patent agreements with 70 research-intensive institutions granting them the right to elect to retain title to D H E W inventions made at these institutions. This policy strikingly accelerated the commercialization of inventions, and in 1980 it was essentially codified into law (the Patent and Trademark Amendments Act PL96517). Most research-intensive institutions already had institutional patent agreements before PL96-517 was enacted, but the law should enhance the transfer of the results of federally funded biomedical research to the public by facilitating the granting of exclusive licences - and hence the flow of capital for development and commercialization. In addition it provides, for the first time, direct authorization for federal agencies to license inventions that they own. What happens to inventions arising out of funds provided jointly by federal government and an industrial sponsor has yet to be fully resolved. Commercial firms may not be willing to support university pro: jects that involve federal funds if the research is subject to statutory and regulatory requirements concerning allocation of rights and other considerations. New university/industrial partnerships in biomedical research could also be assisted by the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (PL 97-34). One of its intentions was to stimulate private capital investment in research and development, and the transfer of equipment from the industrial to the academic sector. PL 97-34 permits, among other things, a 25% tax credit for a firm's eligible research and development costs above ~.he average for a base period; it also increases deductions for charitable
contributions for donation of equipment by the manufacturer to an institution of higher education. However, these and other tax incentives for investment in academic research and development remain to be clarified before they can be properly exploited. Finally, and not least, industry and academia are drawn together because the technical knowledge of the inventor is often indispensable to developing and manufacturing the invention; in biomedical research the inventor is often located - and wishes to remain - in the university or non-profit-making organization. In sum, because academia has something to sell to industry, because prospects for support from the N I H for research in academia are grim and becoming grimmer, and because development and commercialization by industry generally require the continued participation of the academic investigator, the formation of academic/ industrial partnerships in biomedical research is inevitable. Such partnerships have already developed in fields of science such as chemistry, engineering and electronics, and active steps are taken within these disciplines to promote and support cooperative activities between industries and research universities•
Desirability These new academic/industrial partnerships are desirable to the academic world from several vantage points. More important, they will benefit the country as a whole if they allow the results of research done with public f u n d s to be more quickly applied to the actual protection of h u m a n health - assuming that disadvantageous side-effects can be avoided. The partnerships will also help the USA to retain or regain its worldwide lead in technological innovation, development and transfer. In this respect other countries, J a p a n in particular, are believed to have been more productive and efficient - and in those countries, relationships among governmental, academic and industrial institutions have been especially close. Finally, the increase in aggregate investment made possible by these partnerships, and the expansion of support at the applied end of the research spectrum, will free a continuing share of N I H money for the basic research which underpins applied research, development and transfer but which industry has less incentive to finance. Perhaps increased support by the industrial sector would permit the NIH, even in these more stringent times, to meet high-priority needs that cannot otherwise be met, and even to reaffirm its
127
Immunology Today, vol. 4, No. 5, 1983
previously stated goal o f ' stabilization' in more specific terms, the target of awarding 5 000 new and competing research project grants (investigatorinitiated awards) each year. The critical element in the present and future of the biomedical research enterprise is the prospect for support of training. Since 1971 the constant dollars appropriated for the N I H have increased by about 28 % but the constant dollars for training have decreased by approximately 60%. Where, therefore, will the support come from for trainees whose expertise could develop by work on present research projects? More alarmingly, what will be the long-range impact of continuing sharp cut-backs in training support? The 1983 budget will permit the training of 8 915 trainees - only 11% short of the N IH goal of 10 000 trainees, which is reckoned to be an essential critical mass necessary for a vital and effective training program. But this n u m b e r is surely far too low. It does not take full account of the new advances in those technologies, such as recombinant DNA and hybridoma, that in the next decade will create new job opportunities for trained biomedical research personnel. , Industry needs trained biomedical scientists and academia is the best indeed the only - environment for some types of training and for granting advanced degrees. It is in industry's selfinterest, therefore, to support advanced training in the academic environment (or partly in the industrial environment). In fact, since industry cannot fill the entire financial void left by the federal cut-backs, there is good reason to single out training as its highest priority. Compared with other research costs it is inexpensive; a great deal of value for the
industrial sector can be obtained at reasonable cost. Such participation will enable industry to identify the potential future leaders and performers of biomedical research at an early stage and to develop communication with them. Recognition of the need for support of training is reflected by the formation of a new biology foundation, the Life Sciences Research Foundation (LSRF), to award postdoctoral fellowships on a competitive basis. The founders of LSRF include distinguished academic biologists (many of whom have recently developed their own ties with industry) and, as 'founding sponsors', t-IoffmanLa Roche and Monsanto. Similarly, an important part of the agreement between the Stanford Department of Medicine and the Syntex Corporation is the provision of funds to hire young faculty members. David Baltimore, Director of the newly established Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, views the Institute as a 'unique opportunity to expand research activities and to add junior faculty members'. Industry currently supports approximately only 4 % of research and development at colleges and universities. Both industry and academia could benefit from an increase in that provision.
Avoiding the pitfalls Although we are confident that disastrous consequences of the new academic partnerships can be avoided, there are as yet no reliable answers to many outstanding questions. Several studies of the impact of existing partnerships are in progress from different vantage points: the federal, the congres-
sional, the N I H themselves and the universities. But the critical guidance needed by the industrial and academic communities will require an analysis of formidable breadth and depth. Perhaps the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Government-University Relationships in Support of Science will have the stature and the resources necessary to conduct the comprehensive and intensive inquiry that is so urgently called for - an inquiry that will compile the information that has not been assembled, including basic cost and expenditure data, and will offer well-founded and reasoned judgements as to how the enormous potential benefits of the academic/industrial partnerships can be realized and damaging effects on traditional academic values averted or, at least, minimized. But given the importance and urgency of the topic, a strong case can be made for organizing the study at as high a level and with as much prestige as possible. The best form for the undertaking could well be a presidentin commission, a status that would provide the strongest guarantee of access to all of the essential information now often held closely within the confines of particular industrial organizations and academic institutions. Such a study would certainly conclude that while conflicts of interest and increased secrecy of investigations in academic institutions supported by industrial funds are inherent risks in this new era of academic/industrial partnerships, they are not insurmountable. Marilyn L. Bach is a Visiting Fellow, American Council on Education, and Associate Professor, The University ofMinnesota; Ray Thornton is President, Arkansas State University, and Chairman, American Association for theAdvancernent of Sciawe.