[Pharm-policy] More on DOD patent on Japanese Encephalitis vacinne

[James Love]

According those these reports, the a key former government researcher
ended up as a VP for OraVax, the firm that received the exclusive
license from the government, for the Encephalitis vaccine.   Jamie

From: http://www.bioinfo.com/jev.html [from Federal Register: March 22,
1996 (Volume 61, Number 57, Page 11812] DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Notice of Intent To Grant an Exclusive License of a U.S.Government-Owned
Patent Agency: U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, DOD
[Department of Defense].

Summary: In accordance with 37 CFR 404.7 (a)(I)(i), announcement is made
of the intent to grant an exclusive, royalty-bearing, revocable license
of U.S. Patent Application Serial Number 08/348,882, filed November 28,
1994 and entitled ``Infectious DNA Clones of Japanese Encephalitis Virus
and Attenuated Strains Japanese Encephalitis Virus Made from the
Clones'', to OraVax, Inc., 230 Albany Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts
02139.[Requests to the Army for further information should be directed
to the public affairs officer, Mr. Chuck Dasey (301) 619-2736]

Newsday 9/29/99 -Area Labs Have Long Studied Virus / Yale,Rockefeller
began tests in '50s page A28
" Epidemiologists suspect  that the West Nile virus has for the first
time been isolated in humans or animals in the Western Hemisphere, but
the virus has for decades made its home in several U.S. research
laboratories, including Rockefeller University in Manhattan and Yale
University in New Haven, Conn. In fact, investigators there were the
first to grow and study the West Nile virus in the United States. The
work began in the 1950s when unidentified viral samples from around the
world arrived at Rockefeller on a steady basis."

------------------
Thomas Monath, former government researcher at both the Ft. Dietrick Md.
bio-warfare lab and the CDC, is the VP of OraVax, a vaccine manufacturer
with a licensing agreement with the U.S. Army for its
genetically-altered Japanese Encephalitis vaccine (WNV is a Japanese
Encephalitis variation). Monath has been advising Giuliani, the CDC and
the other NYC officials heading the WNV response
since the first day of the so-called epidemic. The future economic
success of OraVax and the hundreds of millions invested by its
stockholders depends on a vast public need for these vaccines. Last year
on its website OraVax announced that their Japanese encephalitis
vaccine, the aptly named ChimeriVax=E2?=A2, would be ready for field testin=
g
at the end of 1999. See: http://www.biospace.com/


From: Newsday 9/25/99-Deadly Discovery
"Virologist Thomas Monath, one of the country's leading authorities on
mosquito-carried viruses, called the discovery ``a bombshell,'' and
added: `` This is the biggest arbovirus story of the last 50 years.
Wow!'' Monath, who works for OraVax, a biotechnology company in Boston,
said he has been working closely with CDC investigators in New York
since the encephalitis outbreak began in late August. He is assisting
federal scientists in trying to figure out a way to deal with the new
development."

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James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
v. 1.202.387.8030, fax 1.202.234.5176
love@cptech.org, http://www.cptech.org