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U.S. Response: Biotechnology Companies Wary of Project Bioshield Biotechnology companies are skeptical about U.S. President George W. Bush’s Project Bioshield plan, the San Jose Mercury News reported Sunday (see GSN, June 24). The $6 billion, 10-year effort is designed to provide biotechnology companies with a guaranteed government buyer for vaccines and medicines to counter chemical and biological weapons. The plan is still being considered in Congress. Companies are concerned that the incentives and guarantees are not sufficient to spur research in bioterrorism defense. “The government doesn’t have a good model there that would say why we should be putting our very valuable resources in this area,” said Robert Chess, chairman of California’s Nektar Therapeutics. “They need to do a lot more work to make it lucrative,” he added. Biotechnology executives are also concerned about the threat of lawsuits from product testing. Many products cannot be tested on humans because of their potential side effects. “Even the threat of a lawsuit can put us out of business,” said Una Ryan, chief executive of Avant Immunotherapeutics in Massachusetts (Heather Phillips, San Jose Mercury News, June 29).
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