Monsanto's golden rice technology available with royalty- free license

At a recent agricultural conference held in Chennai, India, Monsanto Co. (St. Louis, MO) announced that it will provide royalty-free licenses for its technologies that can help further development of "golden rice" and other pro-vitamin A-enhanced rice varieties. Enhanced rice could help the millions of people who suffer from vitamin A deficiencies. The company also announced the recent launch of a new internet web site, http://www.rice-research.org/, which makes its rice genome sequence database accessible to researchers around the world. These two actions were done in response to a recommendation by several national science academies that companies license their proprietary technologies for application in the developing world.

"We want to minimize the time and expenditure that might be associated with obtaining licenses needed to bring 'golden rice' to farmers and the people in dire need of this vitamin in developing countries," said Hendrik Verfaillie, CEO of Monsanto.

The grain known as "golden rice" was developed by Ingo Potrykus, professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, and Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg, Germany, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation. In May 2000, the inventors announced a collaboration with Greenovation and Zeneca to enable this technology to be used free-of-charge for humanitarian purposes. Zeneca pledged to provide regulatory, advisory and research expertise to assist in making "golden rice" available in developing countries.

"I very much hope that others having intellectual property rights used in the development of 'golden rice' will follow the generous example of Monsanto and also provide a royalty-free license for the humanitarian use of the technology and its transfer to developing countries," Potrykus said.

The modified rice is expected to provide nutritional benefits to those suffering from vitamin A deficiency-related diseases, including irreversible blindness in hundreds of thousands of children annually. Adequate vitamin A intake can also reduce the mortality associated with infectious diseases such as diarrhea and childhood measles by enhancing the activity of the human immune system.

In March 1999, Monsanto joined the Global Vitamin A Partnership, which includes the US Agency for International Development, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization. Monsanto has also developed technology to increase levels of beta carotene in oils, and is working to share it with researchers in the developing world.

The launch of the rice-research.org database follows on Monsanto's announcement earlier this year that it had produced a draft sequence of the rice genome, the first crop genome to be completed. In order to facilitate and encourage basic research to improve rice and other crops, the data are being made available at no charge to registered researchers through this website.

Ron Cantrell, director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), said Monsanto's action should "be recognized as another important step in the positive involvement of the private sector in international rice research. It is essential that institutions like IRRI, and companies like Monsanto, continue to look for ways to work together to the benefit of poor rice farmers and consumers. There should be no doubt that this offer by Monsanto is an important step in this process."

Monsanto Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Pharmacia, provides agricultural solutions to growers worldwide. Monsanto's employees provide top-quality, cost-effective, and integrated approaches to help farmers improve their productivity and produce better quality foods.

For more information: Robert Shapiro, Chairman and CEO, Monsanto Co., 800 North Lindbergh Dr., St. Louis, MO, 63167. Tel: 314-694-1000. Fax: 314-694-6752.

Edited by Laura DeFrancesco
Managing Editor, Bioresearch Online