5/3/2002.

Biotech finds ally in Hatch-Utah senator puts his clout behind cloning

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff, 5/3/2002

WASHINGTON - Senator Orrin G. Hatch, who electrified the world of
medical research by announcing this week that he supports human cloning
for therapeutic uses, is riding the Capitol subway, clearly delighted
that he may swing the vote by joining with Senator Edward M. Kennedy and
other Democrats on such a controversial issue.

Hatch is a conservative Republican and ardent foe of abortion,
so his action is seen as the biotech industry's version of ''Nixon goes to
China.''

As Hatch spreads out his long legs in the undersized subway, he says in
a near-whisper: ''It was not a hard decision.''

Indeed, a close look at Hatch's record over the years shows the
biotechnology industry had reason to be confident that Hatch would take
its side. Just two years ago, 160 executives of the biotech industry
gathered in Washington to name Hatch the nation's biotech ''legislator
of the year.''

Hatch helped create the industry by pushing legislation
during the 1990s that granted generous patents to biotech companies as
well as millions of dollars of tax breaks. The pharmaceutical and
biotechnology industry returned the favor, giving Hatch more money in
campaign contributions in the 2000 cycle -- $400,000 -- than any other
congressional candidate, according to the Center for Responsive
Politics.

''In terms of the growth and development of the industry, he has
certainly spearheaded those efforts and been a leader,'' said Michael
Werner of the Biotech Industry Organization, the trade group that hailed
Hatch as its legislator of the year in May 2000, as he was preparing his
quixotic bid for the presidency.

Late yesterday, the momentum from Hatch's announcement paid a dividend
when Republican Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina announced he,
too, would back the bill.

Hatch says the decision to endorse cloning for medical research is not
about campaign contributions and other political considerations back in
conservative Utah. Instead, he focuses on the seriously ill children he
has often encountered. Hatch said that he has for years been driven by
the memory of his work as a medical malpractice defense lawyer and his
time as a bishop in the Mormon Church.

''I saw a lot of suffering and a lot of difficulty,'' Hatch said. ''I
have had to go to hospital after hospital to pray with people. This is a
pro-life position.''

But Hatch, who last year endorsed stem-cell research, also clearly has
bought into the biotech industry's potential, sounding at times like a
company leader pitching Wall Street analysts.

''It's very important, not just in Utah, but look at Massachusetts,''
Hatch said. ''The whole biotech industry has written me a letter saying,
`Gee, please do this.' With the great hospitals and great research
institutions, it would be a shame if we bind the hand of those who might
be able to bring these treatments and cures to our families.''

Then, in a statement that not all religious conservatives would embrace, the
devout Mormon added: ''True science is God's way of doing things. I
believe we have these wonderful potentials because of true science.''

While Utah's biotech industry is much smaller than that in Massachusetts
and California, it is making fast headway. Utah has about 35 biotech
companies with 13,000 employees. Governor Mike Leavitt has said he wants
the state, a leader in cancer research and gene mapping, to build up
biotech.

''The biotech business is significant,'' said Utah Life Sciences
Association president Brian Moss, who works closely with Hatch. ''It is
a significant voter base, it is an intelligent and reasonably well paid
voter base, so it is important politically as well. ''

Dr. Stephen Prescott, president of Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah,
said he has spoken at length with Hatch about the issue and listened as
the senator struggled with its moral dimensions. A few weeks ago,
Prescott said, Hatch was ''physically in anguish'' when the senator
grilled Prescott in a hallway for 20 minutes on the details of sexual
reproduction, with Prescott seeking to persuade Hatch to support cloning
for medical research. Prescott serves on the board of a North Carolina
biotechnology company engaged in stem-cell research.

''From one perspective, I have a conflict, but I'm on the opposite side
of where you would predict,'' Prescott said, noting that the company
works on adult stem cells, not the more controversial form derived from
embryos. ''I took a very strong stance. My argument is that it is a
promising technology.''

Hatch said in an interview that he found Prescott's argument compelling.
With the House having already voted to ban all forms of cloning, the
Senate is expected to vote within a few weeks on a bill cosponsored by
Hatch and Kennedy, the same odd couple that has frequently worked
together on health and education legislation. The bill would ban the
production of humans but would allow cloning to derive stem cells for
medical research. Those cloned cells theoretically could regenerate a
person's diseased organs; hence the term ''therapeutic cloning.'' Hatch
said he became convinced that a cloned cell, unlike a fetus, falls
outside the definition of a human life because it is not inside a
woman's womb and thus is not able to become a human.

Hatch knows that with his antiabortion credentials he could swing the
vote in the Senate, where Democrats hold a 50-49 edge. Thurmond, who has
a daughter with diabetes, yesterday described the Kennedy-Hatch bill as
''moral and ethical.''

Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania
Republican, has also backed the bill. Other Republicans being lobbied
for their support include the two Maine senators, Olympia Snowe and
Susan Collins. Only one Democrat, Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana,
supports a Republican-sponsored bill that would ban cloning, whether for
therapeutic or reproductive purposes.

Landrieu was just as emotional in an interview yesterday as Hatch was in
his, saying the Utah senator's view is ''like legalizing the growth of
marijuana but saying you can't smoke it. Under this bill, you can
produce life, experiment with it, and destroy it, but you can't implant
it. That is impossible to enforce.'' Asked why she thinks Hatch and
others are backing the bill, she characterized them as allies of the
biotech business.

''There are a lot of big, heavily financed biotech companies that want
minimal rules,'' Landrieu said. ''They believe that science is God. ''

Hatch says he has heard the skeptics before. Few believed him, he said,
when he suggested during the early 1990s that passage of the Orphan Drug
Act, which provides tax breaks and patent extensions on rare-disease
drugs, would lead to the creation of an industry. Now, he worries the
industry will founder unless he helps it utilize therapeutic cloning.