{"id":19471,"date":"2025-01-07T11:03:05","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T12:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=19471"},"modified":"2025-01-07T12:24:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T12:24:45","slug":"drug-company-to-share-revenues-with-indigenous-people-who-donated-their-genes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=19471","title":{"rendered":"Drug Company to Share Revenues With Indigenous People Who Donated Their Genes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Variant Bio, a small biotech company based in Seattle, is using genetic information from Indigenous people to develop drugs for obesity and diabetes.<\/p>\n

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When Stephane Castel first met with a group of M\u0101ori people and other Pacific Islanders in New Zealand to talk about his drug company\u2019s plans for genetic research, locals worried he might be seeking to profit from the genes of community members without much thought to them.<\/p>\n

Instead, Dr. Castel and his colleagues explained, they were aiming to strike an unconventional bargain: In exchange for entrusting them with their genetic heritage, participating communities would receive a share of the company\u2019s revenues. Dr. Castel also vowed not to patent any genes \u2014 as many other companies had done \u2014 but rather the drugs his company developed from the partnership.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people told us this was a crazy idea, and it wouldn\u2019t work,\u201d Dr. Castel said. But five years after that first conversation during an Indigenous health research conference in March 2019, Dr. Castel\u2019s gambit is beginning to pay off for both parties.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, his company, Variant Bio, based in Seattle, announced a $50 million collaboration with the drugmaker Novo Nordisk to develop drugs for metabolic disorders, including diabetes and obesity, using data collected from Indigenous populations. Variant Bio will distribute a portion of those funds to the communities it worked with in nine countries or territories, including the M\u0101ori, and will seek to make any medicines that result from its work available to those communities at an affordable price.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Experts on Indigenous genetics said the deal was a positive step for a field that has been plagued by accusations of exploitation and a gulf of mistrust.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, researchers would enter Indigenous communities with empty promises,\u201d said Krystal Tsosie, a geneticist and bioethicist at Arizona State University who runs a nonprofit genetic repository for Indigenous people. \u201cVariant Bio is the only company, to the best of my knowledge, that has explicitly talked about benefit-sharing as part of their mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Variant Bio, a small biotech company based in Seattle, is using genetic information from Indigenous people to develop drugs for obesity and diabetes.When Stephane Castel first met with a group of M\u0101ori people and other Pacific Islanders in New Zealand to talk about his drug company\u2019s plans for genetic research, locals worried he might be seeking to profit from the genes of community members without much thought to them.Instead, Dr. Castel and his colleagues explained, they were aiming to strike an unconventional bargain: In exchange for entrusting them with their genetic heritage, participating communities would receive a share of the company\u2019s revenues. Dr. Castel also vowed not to patent any genes \u2014 as many other companies had done \u2014 but rather the drugs his company developed from the partnership.\u201cA lot of people told us this was a crazy idea, and it wouldn\u2019t work,\u201d Dr. Castel said. But five years after that first conversation during an Indigenous health research conference in March 2019, Dr. Castel\u2019s gambit is beginning to pay off for both parties.On Tuesday, his company, Variant Bio, based in Seattle, announced a $50 million collaboration with the drugmaker Novo Nordisk to develop drugs for metabolic disorders, including diabetes and obesity, using data collected from Indigenous populations. Variant Bio will distribute a portion of those funds to the communities it worked with in nine countries or territories, including the M\u0101ori, and will seek to make any medicines that result from its work available to those communities at an affordable price.Experts on Indigenous genetics said the deal was a positive step for a field that has been plagued by accusations of exploitation and a gulf of mistrust.\u201cIn the past, researchers would enter Indigenous communities with empty promises,\u201d said Krystal Tsosie, a geneticist and bioethicist at Arizona State University who runs a nonprofit genetic repository for Indigenous people. \u201cVariant Bio is the only company, to the best of my knowledge, that has explicitly talked about benefit-sharing as part of their mission.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19473,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19474,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19471\/revisions\/19474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}