The Japanese Go for Blood

"ADOPT ADAPT ADEPT" the Japanese corporate motto has always unnerved to Americans have never learned to accepted the utilization on our technological advance by an economic rival as flattery. Japan's ability to take American research developments, make modifications to stuff industrial needs, and surpass or at least match the U.S. in expertise, long ago forced us to resign ourselves to the existence of high tech the existence of high-tech thievery. The crimes in the common opinion, were always committed in some miserable corner of Silicon Valley where only spies and the most devoted scientists dared tread. It follows then, that little more than a shrug or raised eyebrow followed the revelation that a Japanese company had undeniably cornered a future market with a product initially developed at Harvard Medical School.

Fluosol, the product of a Japanese pharmaceutical Company. Green Cross is a blood subsitute. Forecasters predict that Fluosol, will capture $1.2 billion of the worker for the blood I've usually artificial blood might be used in up to 10 percent of the world's blood transfusions. While the American drug industry has began the development of its own blood substitute it will be years before a product emerges.

Most interesting however is how the Japanese connected market. No intelligence agent sent by Japanese corporate barons penetrated some impregnable vault in a Harvard laboratory basement. Nor did they bug the telephone of a Medical School professor. According to a report in Fortune Magazine, the vital research information was handed to a Japanese executive-because he asked for it.

Dr. Ryoichi Naito, the founder of Green Cross, came across an article in Der Spiegel while traveling in West Germany. The article outlined the research on artificial blood done by Dr. Robert Geyer, head of the Nutrition Department at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Naito immediately caught a plane a Boston and dropped in on Dr. Geyer. As the saying goes. "The rest is history."

Gever had made significant progress in the application of fluorocarbons as a blood substitute. Fluorocarbons readily absorb and transmit oxygen, as does blood Dr. Geyer was able to overcome a major obstacle, the formation of bubbles in the solution when injected into rate, by employing a different mixture. Another difficulty was eliminated by Dr. Leland C. Clark Jr. professor of Research Pedantries at Children's Hospital in Cincinnati. Test animals did not exhale the fluorocarbons but rather collected the substance in their bodies especially in the liver Clark experimented until be found a fluorocarbon emulsion that would be expelled.

Dr. Naito used the work of Dr. Geyer, Dr. Clark, and another scientist at the University of Pennsylvania to initiate his own industrial venture. Green Cross subsequently made its own discoveries such as processes for fluorocarbon mass production and stabilization of the substance for freezing. Still the majority of the necessary research was done in the United States.

Dr. Geyer should not be criticized for aiding Green Cross in its development of artificial blood. As a member of the medical profession. Dr. Geyer is committed to promoting the advancement of life-saving technology, and artificial blood will save lives. Fluosol molecules are smaller than those of blood and could more easily penetrate clots in heart attack victims. For members of religions preventing blood transfusions such as Jehovah's Witnesses, a loss of blood may no longer signal death as Fluosol is not really blood.

Artificial blood may one day prove as indispensable to some medical treatments as is the hypodermic needle. At the very least it will prevent many deaths. In this case the means truly are justified by the end. Flusol is better in foreign hands than nowhere at all. Yet, there is no reason why an American label could not have been placed on each Fluosol container.

The blame for the impending Japanese economic coup on a product based largely on research done in America, lies with American industry. The same opportunities were available to pharmaceutical companies here as in Japan.

THE STORY IS however a familiar one. A few years back Soviet authorities were alarmed to find that the Russians caviar trade was about to collapse because the special breed of fish required was slowly doing out. With a casual request to Washington, the U.S.S.R. received free of charge, a generous supply of a nearly identical species of American fish under an earlier research sharing agreement. The consequence was American fish eggs in Russian containers at exorbitant prices.

Another request by the Soviets nearly resulted in breach of national security. The U.S. was about to send over some equipment as part of a technological "exchange." At the last minute a clerk discovered that one of the instruments was used as an aid in the hardening of missile silos. If America makes such magnanimous gestures to what many perceive as its ideological antithesis, it is frightening to wonder how much this country facilitates its allies rise to economic supremacy.

No government agency is solely capable of forcing businessmen to recognize opportunity before foreigners do or of clamping down on "generousity." In a society as open as this one, the only effective method is the adoption of an ubiquitous national watchfulness and cooperation between researchers and business. when a breakthrough is impending, researchers should actively seek the interest of American industry first.

Government can also aid industry but protectionist quota, need not be the only tool.. Instead of mailing unclassified research reports directly to foreign embassies at every request we should at least force our competition to scramble for the information they need. Any edge at all will be a blessing incorporate America.

The artificial blood monopoly serves as a reminder to the U.S. that generousity may be rewarded in the hereafter but never will it advance our economic status. "Adopt, adapt, adept," may cause a shrug, but another saying should make us shudder. "Nice guys finish last."