Academic Biologists Finding Many Rewards In Consulting For Industry

Consulting For Industry As the life sciences march out of the ivory tower and into the halls of commerce, an increasing number of academic biologists are finding financial, intellectual, and personal rewards as consultants. However, consulting for industry has drawbacks. In addition to the need to comply with university rules regarding outside employment, consultants from academia are faced with a host of ethical dilemmas. Some, such as potential conflicts of interest, are so serious that critics believe university professors should never agree to consult with industry. Even scientists who are enthusiastic about performing consulting work must make ethical choices. For example, Gregory A. Petsko, the Lucile P. Markey Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at Brandeis University, notes that "I won't do consulting work on any project related to military activities. I won't consult for cigarette companies. . . . I also demand in any consulting arrangement that if we're involved in any kind of joint research endeavor, we're allowed to publish." EXPERTISE WANTED: Doris Zallen notes that companies turn to academics "to get some help". Companies have a variety of reasons for hiring consultants, even when they employ dozens of scientists full-time. According to bioethicist Doris T. Zallen, an associate professor of science and technology studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), "A company that has some research agenda in mind would want to consult with scientists who are experts in the field to see if their particular line of investigation looks fruitful, or to get some help if they've hit a snag." SEEKING IDEAS: Moonsanto's Randy Deaton likes to get perspectives from academia "We can't hire all the expertise there is out there," adds W. Randy Deaton, a Memphis-based manager of product development for St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. "We also like to have fresh ideas. Even if we have experts in an area, it's very useful to have someone come in who sees it from a different perspective and challenges our thinking." Academic scientists, as well as their clients, have something to learn from the consulting experience. John E. Hamer, an associate professor of biological sciences at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., explains that "the major reason" he consults is that "companies are cutting ahead of basic research, especially now in biotechnology. I'm going to learn as much from them as they are from me." Hamer, who has done a modest amount of consulting for agrichemical and biotechnology companies, finds one particular attraction of doing work for profit-making ventures: "They're not just doing research to get another paper in Science. They are doing this to make a product that is going to sell and be safe and effective. It's a much tougher game to play than the academic game. The scientists I've had a chance to interact with in industry are extremely bright and very clever and very good, and I learn an awful lot from them." STUDENT AID: Gregory Petsko of Brandeis says industry consulting can lead to jobs for his students. Scientists have a variety of motivations for engaging in consulting activities, and they derive a variety of benefits from them. "The reason I started doing this originally was purely financial," says Petsko. He started consulting in 1979 as a junior professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with referrals from MIT's Industrial Liaison Program. The program, which has been operating since 1948, matches the needs of its more than 200 member companies with the expertise of the faculty. The companies pay annual fees that average $40,000. Petsko estimates that he's consulted for more than a dozen biotech, chemical, and pharmaceutical companies. "I do it now for a variety of reasons. One is that it's very good for my students. If I'm known to industrial people, then my students have a better shot at industrial jobs. Another reason is purely scientific. Right now some of the most interesting science is done in a corporate setting. It's hard to have access to that unless you're involved directly with one of the companies. And the third [reason] is it provides me access to a different kind of perspective. Most of my research is basic research. This gives me a chance to see a bit more clearly the path from basic discoveries to the final finished product or to practical applications." His most enduring consulting relationship, which lasted for 10 years, was with Molecular Simulations Inc. The Burlington, Mass.-based company was one of the first to customize and market software for displaying and manipulating images of molecules. Petsko started consulting for the company in the early 1980s, soon after its founding. "I gave them advice about the kinds of products they should be making, advice about who might be using them, contacts with people who might have interesting software that they could incorporate, [and] critical evaluations of algorithms." He also offered his experience in the beta testing of new products. Beta testing involves putting a new piece of software through its paces, documenting any bugs that arise. At first, Petsko averaged one day a week working for Molecular Simulations. As the young company became more established, his involvement declined to one day a month. Petsko's relationship with the company ended in the early 1990s when, as he puts it, "they had simply outgrown my usefulness," as a result of the maturity of the company's products and the market. Molecular Simulations now has $50 million in annual sales. "I enjoyed . . . watching them grow, watching their strategies evolve," recalls Petsko. "They had to try to keep a balance between the kind of product they wanted to make and the kind of product the marketplace was demanding they make. It also gave me access to some rather interesting software as they developed it, which normally I would not have been able to afford to buy." In addition to networking opportunities, the financial rewards of consulting can be significant, says Monsanto's Deaton. He pays consultants $200 to $500 a day plus all travel expenses. If a consultant flies out one day, spends the next day at the company, and flies back the third day, that's three days' pay. Hamer regularly receives $750 a day for consulting, and Petsko gets $1,500. "A day of my time is incredibly valuable," notes Petsko. "I don't have many to spend, so they have to make it worth my while. Also, at what I do, if I may say so, I'm the best, and therefore the most expensive. It probably amounts to about a quarter or a third of my total income." Cash is not the only way companies pay consultants. "In some cases people will trade equity for cash," explains Petsko. "That is to say, if a company offers you some stock options, you will take less cash as a result." In many cases, says Petsko, long-term consulting relationships can result in a scientist's being offered a partnership in a company or the opportunity to join its board of directors (R. Finn, The Scientist, Jan. 10, 1994, page 21). But consulting income often is limited by institutional regulations. Universities typically allow their faculty to average no more than one day a week-sometimes this is expressed as 20 percent of their time-on outside activities. The temptation to consult can seduce a scientist into neglecting his or her other responsibilities, notes Sue A. Tolin, a professor of plant pathology at Virginia Tech. "Some people who do a lot of consulting, I've heard, just turn their classes over to somebody when there's an opportunity to go on a consulting trip. "You have to do your primary job first." Virginia Tech's strict policy on consulting requires its faculty to seek advance approval from the department head for any such endeavor. And they must also summarize their past year's activity in an annual report that is seen by the dean and the provost in addition to the department head. But not every university's rules are as strict. Purdue's policy has no set limits on the amount of consulting a faculty member may do, subject to the approval of the department chairperson and dean. Purdue's policy doesn't even have absolute prohibitions against conflicts of interest. PURDUE POLICY: Joseph Bennett says an apparent conflict of interest isn't always inappropriate. Explains Joseph L. Bennett, Purdue's vice president for university relations, "This doesn't mean that a conflict of interest would ordinarily be approved. What it means is that there may be instances where a conflict appears on paper but there's nothing inappropriate." For example, Purdue's policy mentions that "possessing a financial interest in a business which competes with the services provided by the university" would "ordinarily be allowable." That ambiguity does not mean there are no rules. A faculty member, for example, may not take an administrative action within the university solely for the benefit of the company for which he or she consults. However, there are shades of gray. The policy says that "receiving financial compensation for conducting research externally that would ordinarily be conducted within the university" is subject to the approval of Purdue's board of trustees. The board must approve all consulting requests that involve real or apparent conflicts of interest. Businesses themselves frequently impose restrictions on their consultants. The most common restriction is a secrecy clause, which prohibits the consultant from revealing anything he or she learns while at the company (S. Benowitz, The Scientist, April 1, 1996, page 1). Virginia Tech's Zallen explains: "Companies are trying to develop products or applications that are profitable. . . . [This] at the very least introduces a very strong delay in the sharing of scientific information, and that's counter to the tradition of openness and collaboration that, in theory at least, we think should exist in the scientific enterprise." Monsanto's Deaton acknowledges that openness is a concern from the company side. "Usually, to get someone in an academic institution to do research for you, they want to publish the results. And usually we put some kind of control on that. We may not want to publish things right away, or we may want to review the data or review the publication before it's published." Purdue's Hamer not only is happy to sign a secrecy clause, but also actively asks to sign one even if the company doesn't demand it. He says he finds it "freeing." If he knows he can't discuss anything he hears, he needn't wonder whether a tidbit revealed by a company scientist in an unguarded moment might be a trade secret. Aside from the rules and regulations, consulting has other disadvantages. For one thing, complains Petsko, "It forces you to spend a lot of time traveling. Whoever said, 'To travel hopefully is better than to arrive' has never taken [a commuter flight]." In addition, he observes, "Splitting your concentration between what you're doing at home and what you're doing for the company can take a significant mental toll. It can also reduce the momentum you have for particular work back home." OBJECTION: Lawrence Soley does not think academic consultants can remain objective. Not everyone thinks that consulting by university scientists is a good idea. Lawrence C. Soley, the Colnik Professor of Communications at Marquette University, declares: "I don't think it's possible for professors to serve two masters. I don't think it's possible for professors to remain dedicated to instruction, to objective research, while on the payroll of a company whose primary interest is in promoting their product." Soley, the author of Leasing the Ivory Tower: The Corporate Takeover of Academia (Boston, South End Press, 1995), adds, "People may well choose a field in which to do research because of the consultancies that are available. It actually affects the overall direction of academic research. Rather than being selected on the basis of what's important to the discipline or the academy, we have outside forces determining the agenda." "I think consulting will often change the direction of a scientist's work, but what the heck is wrong with that?" responds Petsko. "As I get older, I find that I would like the work that I do to have more direct practical benefits." Another worrisome prospect is that corporate ties may compromise the public advisory role that many scientists assume. Zallen, who serves on the National Institutes of Health's Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, says that this comes up "when the scientist is called on to consult on behalf of the public, say at. . . some kind of public panel that's geared toward helping make policy that's going to affect all of the people in [the United States]. You turn to the experts, and you want to know that the expert is really doing the best by the public. But how can you be sure of this if the expert simultaneously has strong connections to a private company that has a particular agenda, a particular project, and a particular approach? It raises a serious question, because in the past we've always felt that we could turn to scientists for unbiased reactions or advice." Scientists have various ways of dealing with this ethical conflict. Tolin, who served on advisory committees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture for years, says, "When I was working with the government, I was very careful not to have any consulting arrangements with companies." Randall G. Luttrell, a professor of entomology at Mississippi State University in Starkville, has limited involvement as a consultant for industry, but on occasion has consulted for Monsanto regarding insect resistance to transgenic plants. He stresses that his involvement as a consultant was "influenced by the specific issue involved, not by the financial rewards." In most instances, he instructs the company to send the fee for his services directly into his department's coffers rather than to him personally. "It has to be clear that Randy Luttrell is working for Mississippi State University and not for Monsanto," he explains. However, he emphasizes that this is a personal decision. "There are many positive aspects associated with the cooperative relationships between scientists and private industry," he adds. But Petsko denies that there's a problem. "Some people are corruptible, but most of the scientists I know who do consulting have spoken out strongly on public issues, and in many cases their stances would be in conflict with standard corporate policies or postures. I think most scientists are pretty ethical people." Despite the potential ethical dilemmas, Tolin is seeking corporate consulting positions now that she has completed her government committee service. "I've worked on the philosophy that every scientist needs to do something on the outside. And if you can do it for compensation and for the good of your program, you're better off than if you give it away." One thing is clear: More and more life scientists are going to be given the opportunity to make these ethical decisions. "It's a culture that for life scientists is relatively new, compared to physicists or engineers," notes Hamer. "I think it's a natural progression to our field, becoming more market-driven and more involved in the private sector. And I think we should enjoy it."

Academic Biologists Finding Many Rewards In Consulting For Industry

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