A MAJOR report on biotechnology in Britain — not yet published but made available to Nature — calls for a rapid increase in investment to build a competitive industry. It says the “customer-contractor” principle should be scrapped for biotechnology, where the border-lines between basic and applied research are grey. The report is a first draft — though unlikely to be substantially altered — from a seven-man working party set up early last year under Dr Alfred Spinks, a former research director of Imperial Chemical Industries. Robert Walgate reviews its hard-hitting and interventionist recommendations.
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United Kingdom: Biotechnology report urges £10 million programme “to match competitors”. Nature 283, 324–325 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/283324a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/283324a0