Industry Briefs

The EPA has incurred the wrath of the biotechnology industry with its draft of new biotech regulations. Both the Industrial Biotechnology Association (IBA) and the Association of Biotechnology Companies (ABC) took a gander at the draft regulations at an EPA Biotechnology Science Advisory Committee meeting December 21 and promptly fired off press releases expressing their ire. The draft regulations - which were to be formally proposed at the end of January - represent a step backward for the EPA and will be difficult for manufacturers to comply with, complained the Industrial Biotechnology Association. In an eight-page letter submitted to the EPA committee, the IBA criticizes the draft of proposed changes on a number of grounds, from its suggested creation of Environmental Biosafety Committees, made up of scientists and lay citizens to oversee biotechnology at the local level, to its definitions of "release to the environment" and "manufacturing."

For its part,...