Rubicon retreats in face of GM cost

By SIMON COLLINS, science reporter

One of New Zealand's best-financed biotechnology companies, Rubicon, says regulatory costs and "greenies" have driven its research into genetically modified pine trees out of the country.

Rubicon vice-president Bruce Burton told a biotechnology forum in Auckland yesterday that New Zealand had created "a very high regulatory hurdle" that was deterring companies from GM research, despite the official end of the GM moratorium last October.

"Our US partners say the costs and the potential threats of the greenies are too high, so we'll carry on doing tests in the US and Brazil."

Rubicon was carved out of the Fletcher Challenge empire in 2000, taking over Fletcher Forests' interests in tree technologies including a 31.7 per cent stake in ArborGen, a joint venture with US-based International Paper and Mead Westvaco.

Auckland's Genesis Research & Development also has a 5 per cent stake in ArborGen.

Burton said ArborGen aimed to modify eucalyptus, loblolly pine and eventually radiata pine to improve wood quality and provide resistance to pine pitch canker, which has infected US pine forests.

The company was developing modified seedlings in laboratories in New Zealand, then sending them to the US and Brazil for field trials.

Hamilton-based AgResearch said last year that it had to spend $500,000 in fees and legal costs to get regulatory approval to genetically modify cows to produce medically valuable chemicals in their milk.

Burton said that was "too high a barrier ... the costs you have to go through are very high compared with the US and Brazil.

"ArborGen is looking to start developing GE radiata, and one of the questions it has is that the regulatory environment here is too tough."

Julie Watson, a spokeswoman for the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma), said it introduced a new fixed fee in December of $35,000 for a GM field trial.

"That is obviously less than what we charged in the past," she said.

But fees for commercial releases, including conditional releases, of GM organisms will still be set on a case-by-case basis depending on the expected costs of hearings.

Watson said no applications for GM field trials or commercial releases had been received since the moratorium ended. Only one application, for a contained trial of GM onions, has been heard and approved since October, but it was lodged when the moratorium still stood.

But Life Sciences Network chairman Dr William Rolleston said he knew of planned applications that were "moving forward".