
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 11, 1990                   TAG: 9004110022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Short

CELL DONOR SUES TO GAIN ANTI-CANCER DRUG PROFITS

California's Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday on whether a leukemia survivor deserves to share profits from a cancer-fighting drug made from his cells in a case pitting medical progress against a man's rights to his own body.

"Without my knowledge or consent, the doctors and the research institutions used a part of me for their own gain," John Moore, president of a Seattle soft-drink company, said as he entered the courtroom.

"They stole something from me," he said.

Moore, 45, said he sued the University of California, two researchers and two biotechnology and drug companies to defend "the rights of the individual patient in the case where the physician-researcher is also a businessman-entrepreneur."

Industrial Biotechnology Association lawyer Gary Ritchey, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing Moore's lawsuit, said outside court that development of vital new medicines will be hindered if the court rules that Moore has a property interest in cells and tissues removed from his body.

"Research is conducted for the benefit of the public," Allen Wagner, attorney for the University of California regents, told the high court. "If Mr. Moore succeeds, he will infuse a private interest that will restrain the course and direction of research."

In 1984, UCLA received a patent for the cell line, naming Golde and research assistant Shirley Quan as the inventors.

by CNB