Sir

Your article “Curtain falls on gene sequencing deal” (Nature 391, 621; 1998) contains some comments misattributed to a SmithKline Beecham (SB) spokesperson that may have created an inaccurate impression of the status and progress of the SB/Human Genome Sciences (HGS) collaboration.

In particular, we do not feel that we have “exhaustively milked” the SB/HGS database, as quoted in the article. Indeed, we firmly believe that many novel genes of therapeutic interest remain to be discovered in this resource. However, SB is focusing its drug discovery efforts on targets that we have already identified, as a matter of strategic focus. We want to be clear that we are actively pursuing many targets obtained from the SmithKline Beecham/Human Genome Sciences database, and we continue to regard the collaboration as highly productive.

We hope that these comments clarify the status of SmithKline Beecham's collaboration with Human Genome Sciences, and resolve any ambiguity that may have arisen.