The SNP Consortium Papers: Background and Context

Abstract

The SNP Consortium (“TSC”) was a nonprofit research collaboration formed in 1999 to identify, map and publicly release human genomic markers known as “single nucleotide polymorphisms” (SNPs). The project was funded by a group of large pharmaceutical, biotechnology and information technology companies, together with the Wellcome Trust, which collectively contributed $53 million to fund the project. TSC was the rare scientific undertaking that completed its work ahead of schedule, under budget and with far more results than planned. The TSC’s corporate papers and documents contained in those files (the “SNP Papers”) are now in the custody of the [University of Utah Health Sciences Library], where they are available to researchers. Digitization of the SNP Papers is under way, and it is anticipated that they will be made available online in the near future. An index is included in the Appendix to this essay. The remainder of this essay describes TSC, its background, legal structure and “protective” patent strategy, as well as the contents of some of the SNP Papers.

Keywords: genomics, data sharing, human genome project, bermuda principles, commons, bayh-dole