paris

The call for an overhaul of genome research in France (see above) coincided with the announcement last week by the Ministry of Science, Education and Technology of the creation of a consortium for genome research.

The consortium will link private companies, public research units and university groups, and is set to receive FF1.5 billion (US$235 million) of government funding over the next three to five years.

The money will go towards research at France's genome laboratories, and towards building a national network of ‘génopôles’ – clusters of genome-related laboratories and companies – similar to that being built at Evry, near Paris. How the companies will contribute to the consortium – either financially or by releasing some of their results for use by other members of the consortium – is still under negotiation.

It is widely accepted that French genome research could benefit from increased government support. But early proposals for the use of the extra money kindled controversy over reports that up to half would be earmarked to support the company Genset, France's main hope in industrial genome research, which has seen the value of its stock-market shares halved in the past 12 months (see Nature 399, 185; 1999).

No announcement has been made on how the money is to be allocated. But geneticists close to the issue say that, since the allegations of a possible government subsidy to Genset, the ministry has broadened the consortium to include more companies and research centres.

Plans now call for the involvement of Synthélabo, Sanofi and Rhône-Poulenc, as well as France's Institute of Genetics and Molecular Biology near Strasbourg, Génopôle and the Evry-based National Sequencing Centre (Genoscope) and National Genotyping Centre.

Regardless of whether Genset will be a major recipient of the funding, some scientists criticize the decision, saying that taxpayers' money should fund public research units whose budgets are inadequate, rather than companies.

“The government should give money to public research units such as CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and INSERM (the national biomedical research agency), who in turn could invest in contracts with the private sector,” says Jean-Michel Claverie, director of the Information Génétique et Structurale unit at CNRS.

Claverie says the consortium raises questions of who will publish research data and who will have access to it. “I think a merger between public and private interests is confusing a lot of issues, and may be considered unfair competition by companies outside the consortium and in the United States and United Kingdom,” he says.

Others note that the consortium is an example of France's tradition of using public funds to support private industry. In France, “if the state does nothing, no one will do it,” says Bernard Dujon, professor of molecular genetics at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.

Claverie points out that, although the report from the Academy of Sciences calls for an overhaul of genome research, such a consortium was not what the authors had in mind.