Synthetic biology: Cultural divide : Nature News & Comment

"[Andrew] Hessel represents an increasingly impatient and outspoken faction of synthetic biology that believes that the patent-heavy intellectual-property model of biotechnology is hopelessly broken. His plan relies instead on freely available software and biological parts that could be combined in innovative ways to create individualized cancer treatments — without the need for massive upfront investments or a thicket of protective patents. He calls himself a “catalyst for open-source synthetic biology”.

This openness is one vision of synthetic biology's future. Another is more akin to what happens at big pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, Merck and Roche, where revenues from blockbuster drugs fund massive research initiatives behind locked doors. For such businesses, the pursuit of new drugs and other medical advances depends heavily on protecting discoveries through patents and restrictive licensing agreements...."