While Thai officials and non-governmental organisations
debate who should have property rights over
products made from natural compounds, Singapore's National
University and its Economic Development
Board (EDB) have quietly set up two major research projects,
including a S$60 million (Bt1.1 billion),
10-year joint venture with Glaxo Wellcome, Britain's largest
pharmaceutical firm.
What's more, the Singaporean ventures appear to have gained access to many plant species from Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia through an agreement with the Singapore Botanical Gardens, which has a collection of plants from all over the world.
''Most of the plants we get come from the reservoir at
the centre of [Singapore] island, and we also
have an agreement with India," said Dr Miranda Yap, director
of the joint-venture, known as the Centre
for Natural Products Research (CNPR). ''We don't send
people out to take things illegally; everything
is legal and above-board."
Yap added that the agreement with the Botanical Gardens
whose collection of plants dates back to the
days of the British empire and contains specimens from
India and Southeast Asia as well as from as far
away as South America is ''to use their herbarium,
not to tap their resources".
But asked whether the CNPR screens species from the Botanical
Gardens for valuable products, Yap
replied ambiguously, ''Not necessarily," then suddenly
refused to answer any further questions on the
subject.
Yap's reticence is just the latest sign that the practice known as bioprospecting seeking out potentially useful compounds found in nature has become a politically-sensitive issue, largely because of arguments over how the property rights should be divided.
In Thailand, this dispute has so far prevented ratification of the UN Convention on Biodiversity, making it difficult to carry out bioprospecting here. ''We would like to do research in Thailand," Yap said, ''[but] some people are averse to working with multinationals [because] they feel exploited. But at some point you need to find a partner."
And in Glaxo, Singapore has found a partner with deep pockets.
Its anti-ulcer drug Ranitidine was the
best selling drug in the world in 1992, achieving sales
of Bt62 billion, and its anti-asthma drug Salbutamol
racked up sales of Bt15.5 billion, according to a sign at the CNPR.
The CNPR was set up in 1993 with initial funding of S$20
million from Glaxo, S$10 million from the
EDB, and another S$10 worth of infrastructure and research
support from the National University of
Singapore's (NUS) Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology,
according to a NUS newsletter.
''Under the Biodiversity Convention, you can't just take
[specimens from foreign countries] without
permission," says Dr Michael Holmes of the National University
of Singapore's Bioscience Centre, which
also does bioprospecting work.
''Some people still do it, but it's better to work out an agreement."
The S$6 million (Bt110 million) Bioscience Centre's Sample
Collection Project was also established
with the help of the EDB, but it is on a much smaller
scale and more academically-minded than the
industrial screening carried out by the CNPR. Holmes added,
however, ''If we find something of
commercial value, we would patent it first and then publish our data.
''For human drugs, only one in 10,000 samples gives you
a lead, so the screening process is very
targeted and the success rate is very low," Holmes said.
''Our screens are done by university scientists. We don't have a lot of
high-tech equipment but our work may yield things interesting for science."
Any promising compounds discovered are passed on to other
researchers at the university, or to the
Zoological Reference Collection, or indeed are available
to anyone subject to agreement. Holmes'
team has cooperated with researchers seeking compounds
useful in the fight against Aids, cancer and
malaria, among others.
But unlike the CNPR, the Bioscience Centre project is looking
not just for human drugs, but for any
kind of useful compounds, including pesticides and anti-fouling
agents for ships. In fact, said Holmes, if the CNPR comes across a potentially
useful compound it cannot use, it will pass it on to the Bioscience Centre.
''We are interested in [natural] toxins, which are actually
exquisitely potent and specific bio-active
compounds," explained the amiable Holmes, a native of
Australia. ''We extracted a promising anti-HIV
compound from the skin of a mangosteen, for instance,
and sent it on to a [specialist] institute, but
they found it wasn't useful for primates." The Bioscience
Centre's project has been running for over a
year and its sample collection now contains more than
600 extracts, which are mostly derived from
Singapore's marine resources.
Organisms such as sponges, sea mosses, sea squirts and
hydroids are collected, photographed,
identified if possible and then cut up and processed into
extracts.
''Singapore is a small country but the diversity of life on coral reefs is still very good," Holmes said. ''The problem is there's so much port activity. They're always either filling in or dredging up [the seabed]. If you find something good, how do you locate it again if it's been moved or destroyed?"
''When we learned the Sirene reefs [off Singapore] were
going to be destroyed, we just went and took
everything," said Sirina Teo, another researcher at the
Bioscience Centre.
''But normally we try to take a limited amount so
that the sample can grow back. We do want at
least 10 grams of extract, however."
Besides getting compounds from the sea and the CNPR, the
Bioscience Centre also sources material from abroad. ''We have an agreement
with Indonesia, which gives us some plants, and we cooperate with
France they have material from colonies like New
Caledonia," Holmes said.
''It's a very long road to commercial success and realistically
this programme is very very basic,"
Holmes concluded.
''Developing a drug, for instance, could cost hundreds
of millions of dollars, so at some point you do
need an agreement with a pharmaceutical company."