Business Notes Drugs

The Pacific Coast's forests are teeming with hidden drugs, including the legal kind. Last week the Agriculture Department decided to allow the pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb to cut down 38,000 Pacific yew trees for one such substance. The bark of the yew tree is the sole source for a drug called taxol, a promising treatment for breast and ovarian cancer. Despite concerns over the impact of the yew harvest, most environmental groups support the agreement because it specifies that Bristol-Myers will pay for Forest Service research into conservation and management of the yews.

Criticism has centered instead on the sweetheart nature of the deal. Says Oregon Congressman Ron Wyden: "I don't know of any other instance when the Federal Government has given any one drug company exclusive control over a species." The monopoly extends to marketing as well, since taxol is covered by an orphan-drug law that gives one company the right to sell the product.