A RULING from the European Court of Justice restricting the patenting of a stem cell research technique will reduce the money coming into European countries, including Ireland, for stem cell research, according to a leading Irish researcher.
Dr Gavin Davey of Trinity College told The Irish Timesthat money would flow to the US and Asia, where no such restrictions apply. The ruling has been welcomed by Christian groups opposed to the use of human embryos in research.
The EU court ruled yesterday against the patenting of a process for removing a stem cell from a human embryo at blastocyst state, that is, after fertilisation but before the embryo is implanted. The technique could have been used to develop treatment for Parkinson’s Disease, according to the owner of the patent.
The process was developed by a German scientist, Oliver Brüstle of the University of Bonn, and he filed the patent in 1997. However, after a challenge by Greenpeace, the German Federal Patent Court ruled that the patent was invalid in so far as it covered processes for obtaining precursor cells from human embryonic stem cells.
Mr Brüstle appealed this decision to the German Federal Court of Justice, which referred questions to the Court of Justice concerning the interpretation of the concept of “human embryo” which is not defined in the EU Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions.
The question was whether the exclusion from patentability of the human embryo covered all stages from fertilisation, or whether other conditions had to be met.
The court found a wide interpretation had to be given to the concept of “human embryo”, as the directive intended to exclude any possibility of patentability where respect for human dignity could be affected. This meant the human ovum must be regarded as a human embryo as soon as fertilised.
The ruling does not mean that stem research cannot take place, Dr Davey said. “People in universities will still do the research, but it will be harder to get money for it.”