Posted on 11/10/2003 6:46:27 PM PST by woofie
Sandia National Laboratories bills it as a computer-based sentinel, offering early warning of a biological weapons attack.
But the sentinel is going nowhere, bottled up in the lab, while Sandia squanders the chance to move it into widespread use, according to Al Zelicoff, one of the scientists who led the technology's development.
Sandia has given exclusive rights to the technology to a small startup company founded by one of the labs' scientists, in the process turning away inquiries from a major national company interested in taking the technology out of the lab and putting it into widespread use.
Zelicoff, nationally known as a biological weapons expert, resigned from Sandia in July over the issue.
"A $3.5 million DOE investment lies fallow while our vulnerability to future bioterrorism remains largely unaddressed," Zelicoff complained in an August letter to two members of New Mexico's congressional delegation.
The technology is called RSVP— short for Rapid Syndrome Validation Project. It is a computer-based system that collects quick reports from doctors, collating them in a search for early warning of symptoms that could be signs of a bioterror attack or disease outbreak. RSVP was developed by Sandia and others, including the New Mexico Department of Health, because current systems for collecting public health data don't work fast enough for officials to respond to the outbreak of a novel disease, Zelicoff said in an interview. "Hours matter. Days are too late and months are hopeless," Zelicoff said. "Months are for academic papers."
State officials were frustrated by their experience with Hantavirus, which first showed up as isolated cases of unexplained respiratory symptoms, according to Gary Simpson, medical director of the New Mexico Department of Health's Infections Disease Bureau.
Warning system works
With RSVP, doctors spend a minute entering a patient's basic symptoms into a computer, and public health officials can monitor resulting disease patterns in real time.
The system works, according to Tigi Ward, a public health official with the Lubbock Public Health Department, which has been working with Sandia to test RSVP. Obviously, Lubbock has not been subject to a biological weapons attack, but Ward said RSVP did help identify an outbreak of influenza— a disease that can be deadly for the elderly and people with weak immune systems.
"It's our earliest real-time warning system," she said. RSVP has been tested in nine regional health departments. But, according to Zelicoff, for it to be truly useful in providing an early warning of a bioweapons attack, it needs much more widespread deployment.
Sandia officials do not dispute Zelicoff's basic allegations:
That Greg Mann, a Sandia researcher who, with Zelicoff, helped develop the technology, has been given exclusive rights to commercialize RSVP through Mann's company, PromptMD.
That WebMD, a major national medical information company, was turned away this summer when it approached Sandia about commercializing RSVP.
Perfect partner
To Zelicoff, WebMD is the perfect partner to get RSVP out of the lab and into the hands of the doctors and public health officials who could use it.
The company provides computerized health information and data management services to more than a half-million physicians nationwide.
Integrating RSVP into WebMD's network of services would be the perfect way for it to reach widespread deployment, according to Zelicoff.
"It is hard to imagine a better match: Sandia's technology partnered with the foremost provider of medical office software and medical education courses," Zelicoff wrote in his August letter.
Talks collapse
According to both Zelicoff and Mann, WebMD was in discussions with Mann about commercializing the technology, but the discussions collapsed earlier this year. Zelicoff alleges Mann demanded "a direct payment of several hundred thousand dollars to his start-up company, plus a promise of royalties." According to Zelicoff, WebMD walked away because negotiations were taking too long and because Mann was asking too much.
Mann acknowledged that the discussions with WebMD broke down, in part, over money. He would not say how much he was asking for but did not dispute Zelicoff's assertion that it was several hundred thousand dollars.
Mann said his startup company could not have done the work necessary to integrate RSVP into WebMD's system for the amount of money WebMD was willing to pay.
"We've broken off our discussions," Mann said. "It was broken off in a cordial, positive way." According to both Zelicoff and David Goldheim, Sandia's director of corporate business development, WebMD then approached Sandia directly about licensing the RSVP software.
"We told them at that point that we had agreed with Greg that we would give him first right of refusal," Goldheim said.
WebMD Vice President Steven Zatz would not comment about the company's discussions with Mann or Sandia.
Until recently, Sandia had no formal contractual agreement with Mann, merely an informal agreement giving him exclusive rights to commercialize the RSVP technology.
Agreement reached
That changed Oct. 13, when Sandia and Mann signed a formal agreement licensing the RSVP technology to him.
By giving Mann that exclusivity over WebMD, Sandia is effectively preventing RSVP from getting into widespread use, Zelicoff alleges.
Goldheim said Mann has earned the right to try to commercialize RSVP because, until WebMD came along, no one had been interested.
Sandia made widespread efforts to publicize RSVP in science and technology publications in search of a commercial partner, according to Kevin McMahon, Sandia's manager of licensing and intellectual property management, but Mann was the only person who came forward.
That, according to McMahon, met Sandia's legal obligation to give other companies a fair shot at the technology.
When no one else came forward, Sandia entered talks with Mann and his PromptMD company.
"Nobody but Greg stepped up to the plate and indicated serious intent," Goldheim said in an interview.
According to Mann, commercializing RSVP is more complicated than simply sticking the software on a bunch of doctors' desks.
In an interview, he explained that his business model depends on tapping into federal funding targeted at public health departments to monitor for bioterror attacks.
Local public health departments around the country would pay to have RSVP installed on doctors' desktops in their community.
"That's essentially the paying customer for RSVP— the public health office," Mann said.
Costs are high
The problem, according to Mann, is that marketing RSVP to hundreds of public health departments across the country will be an expensive proposition.
Mann said WebMD realized that, which is one reason the company backed away from a deal with him.
"They realized the marketing cost was going to be significantly greater than expected," Mann said.
By not signing a deal with WebMD or taking some other steps to get RSVP into wider use, all the work put into the project is now languishing, Simpson said.
"Nothing's happening at the moment, and that's pretty frustrating," he said.
Mann believes he and his company will be able to get RSVP into the market without WebMD. He also believes he is the technology's best and only shot.
He would not discuss specifics about his marketing plans but said they could include a deal with "a large, well-established company with infrastructure."
"If PromptMD does not get RSVP to the market, this investment in this software— it'll be wasted," he said.
According to McMahon, the agreement signed with Mann includes specific performance requirements. If Mann does not succeed in getting RSVP out of the laboratory and into the market, he will lose the license and another company would have a chance.
To Zelicoff, Sandia's decision to give Mann exclusive rights and turn away WebMD means that an opportunity to tighten our defenses against biological weapons attack has been squandered.
"While I cannot claim that RSVP will, in and of itself, fully address our vulnerability to biological or chemical terrorism, I believe it takes us a step closer to that important goal," he wrote. "Time is not on our side."
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