79
3
magazine Folkevett (‘Common Sense’), published by The Future in Our Hands,
Norway’s largest environmental organization, wrote that:
» The patent wave is hitting us hard. Norway loses millions every year because a foreign company has patented a medicine derived from a fungus from Norwegian
nature. Developing countries lose even more, when pharmaceutical companies grab
a piece of their nature and patent so-called biological innovations without giving
anything back to the source country (Folkevett no. 4 1998. Our translation from
Norwegian).
With Folkevett as the source, the narrative was repeated on the leading Norwegian
TV news (27.02.1999). Likewise, Aftenposten, the country’s largest newspaper leaning politically towards centre-right wrote (16.06.2000):
» The foreign company Hoffman LaRoches took out a patent, when researchers found
a microorganism on the Hardanger Plateau, that they developed into a medicine
that prevents the human body from rejecting transplanted organs, such as a heart.
Because of the patent, Norway does not recoup any of the billions that the medicine
brings in each year. (Our translation from Norwegian)
The references here to a wrong company and just one patent are symptomatic for the
lack of weight on empirical knowledge when accounts of biological patents and
biopiracy have been presented in Norwegian media. Through our research, we have
found that patents in this case did not constitute a cause of exploitation. Norway
may be seen as having lost income in this case, but this is due to other reasons. Like
the rest of the world, Norway did not have laws that regulated access to genetic
resources, when the sample of the microfungus was taken to Switzerland in 1969.
With such regulations, we have estimated that Norway would have had a realistic
claim against Novartis for about 24 million dollars per year (Svarstad et al. 2000).
Novartis’ patents provide payment for the expense of developing the success
medicine. During the years that the patents are in force, other companies are barred
from using the findings without paying for the research. If Norway had appropriate legislation at the time and a contract with Novartis on a share of the income
from such a finding, the patents could have ensured benefits to the Norwegian state
(Svarstad et al. 2000; Svarstad 2002). This may not have been essential for Norway,
which in the 1970s developed its fossil fuel industry, but for low income countries
such income, in coherence with the Biodiversity Convention, could imply useful
additions to national budgets. If so, the focus would have had to be moved from
patenting to laws and procedures for bioprospecting.
So, what was the source of the reports in Norwegian media that patenting prevented Norway from benefitting from the Hardanger Plateau fungus? We were surprised to find that this was actually our own research, although our research
conclusions were not presented at all, but instead they were replaced with unsubstantiated speculations. The media reports presented our calculations of loss of income,
but ignored our assessment of the effect of patenting and instead reproduced the
biopiracy narrative. Although we made the first narrative producer (Folkevett) aware
of this before their article was printed, they chose to print it without our corrections,
and their presentation constituted the source for the other media.
3.8 · From Hollywood to the Norwegian Mountains
3
magazine Folkevett (‘Common Sense’), published by The Future in Our Hands,
Norway’s largest environmental organization, wrote that:
» The patent wave is hitting us hard. Norway loses millions every year because a foreign company has patented a medicine derived from a fungus from Norwegian
nature. Developing countries lose even more, when pharmaceutical companies grab
a piece of their nature and patent so-called biological innovations without giving
anything back to the source country (Folkevett no. 4 1998. Our translation from
Norwegian).
With Folkevett as the source, the narrative was repeated on the leading Norwegian
TV news (27.02.1999). Likewise, Aftenposten, the country’s largest newspaper leaning politically towards centre-right wrote (16.06.2000):
» The foreign company Hoffman LaRoches took out a patent, when researchers found
a microorganism on the Hardanger Plateau, that they developed into a medicine
that prevents the human body from rejecting transplanted organs, such as a heart.
Because of the patent, Norway does not recoup any of the billions that the medicine
brings in each year. (Our translation from Norwegian)
The references here to a wrong company and just one patent are symptomatic for the
lack of weight on empirical knowledge when accounts of biological patents and
biopiracy have been presented in Norwegian media. Through our research, we have
found that patents in this case did not constitute a cause of exploitation. Norway
may be seen as having lost income in this case, but this is due to other reasons. Like
the rest of the world, Norway did not have laws that regulated access to genetic
resources, when the sample of the microfungus was taken to Switzerland in 1969.
With such regulations, we have estimated that Norway would have had a realistic
claim against Novartis for about 24 million dollars per year (Svarstad et al. 2000).
Novartis’ patents provide payment for the expense of developing the success
medicine. During the years that the patents are in force, other companies are barred
from using the findings without paying for the research. If Norway had appropriate legislation at the time and a contract with Novartis on a share of the income
from such a finding, the patents could have ensured benefits to the Norwegian state
(Svarstad et al. 2000; Svarstad 2002). This may not have been essential for Norway,
which in the 1970s developed its fossil fuel industry, but for low income countries
such income, in coherence with the Biodiversity Convention, could imply useful
additions to national budgets. If so, the focus would have had to be moved from
patenting to laws and procedures for bioprospecting.
So, what was the source of the reports in Norwegian media that patenting prevented Norway from benefitting from the Hardanger Plateau fungus? We were surprised to find that this was actually our own research, although our research
conclusions were not presented at all, but instead they were replaced with unsubstantiated speculations. The media reports presented our calculations of loss of income,
but ignored our assessment of the effect of patenting and instead reproduced the
biopiracy narrative. Although we made the first narrative producer (Folkevett) aware
of this before their article was printed, they chose to print it without our corrections,
and their presentation constituted the source for the other media.
3.8 · From Hollywood to the Norwegian Mountains