Congress To Look Into NIH Contract

A Congressional committee has launched an investigation to determine whether Harvard received “favorable treatment” when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded the University a $40 million research contract in March 2002.

According to a letter sent on Monday to University President Lawrence H. Summers, the investigation will look at whether Dr. Richard Klausner, the director of the NIH’s National Cancer Institute from 1995 to 2001, “personally and substantially participated” in the decision to award the contract to Harvard at a time when he was a candidate for the presidency of the University.

In June 1999, Klausner excused himself from participating in any decisions relating to Harvard until after the presidential search concluded.

But Klausner’s schedule shows he attended meetings to discuss the contract during this time, and “it appears [he] had detailed personal knowledge about this subcontract and its status,” according to the letter, which was also sent to NIH director Dr. Elias Zerhouni.

The five-year subcontract from Klausner’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Science Applications International Corporation funded Harvard’s Molecular Target Laboratory, which studies the role of proteins in diseases.

The project, headed by Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry Stuart L. Schreiber, is now called the Initiative for Chemical Genetics.

“From [Klausner’s] friendship with Dr. Schreiber, his knowledge and promotion of NCI’s previous funding of chemical genetics research, and [his] October 1999 site visit to Dr. Schreiber’s lab, we have reason to believe Dr. Klausner was well aware that Harvard was a prime candidate for this initiative,” the letter says.

Harvard’s Senior Director of Federal and State Relations Kevin Casey said yesterday that he did not know details about the specific situation, but asserted that Harvard researchers receive grants based solely on the merit of their work.

“Harvard has not exerted influence institutionally on any individual grants at the NIH, and our policy is not to do so,” Casey said. “The area that this grant was awarded is an area that we are a world leader in. We hope that would have been borne out by the peer review process.”

The letter from the House Committee of Energy and Commerce also alleges that Klausner may have served as a paid consultant for Infinity Pharmaceuticals, a company that used the research funded by the grant for commercial purposes.

According to the letter, Klausner and Schreiber were listed publicly as two of the company’s founders when it was created in February 2001.

But Klausner has downplayed the role he played in Infinity Pharmaceuticals while still at the NIH, and others have attested that “‘founder’ is an imprecise term,” the letter states.

Klausner could not be reached for comment yesterday, but the letter says he told the Committee “that he was in compliance with ethics rules and that he believed there was no connection between the [Harvard] award and Infinity Pharmaceuticals.”

NIH spokesperson John Burklow said the institute had received the letter Monday.

“We are initiating an internal review of the matters raised by the committee,” he said, adding that he did not know when the review would begin.

According to the letter, NIH policy excuses officials from participating in any federal funding decisions where they might have a conflict of interest.

The letter raises questions about the terms of the contract, pointing to the fact that the contract’s funding sources typically support research at NIH headquarters in Maryland, but this money was used to support a lab at Harvard.

The committee is also looking into the size of the contract, which the letter calls an “extraordinarily large amount” to be given at one time. The average NIH grant is $365,000, according to the letter.

The letter also questions whether the factors used to choose the grant recipient favored Schreiber and Harvard, due to Schreiber’s prominence in the field, his friendship with Klausner and his former position on the NCI’s Scientific Advisory Board.

The committee is requesting copies of any communications between Harvard and the funders of the lab, records of Klausner’s visits to Harvard and to Schreiber’s laboratory and the records of the Harvard Presidential Search Committee.

Casey said the University would “cooperate as much as we can with the investigation.”

—Staff writer Jessica R. Rubin-Wills can be reached at rubinwil@fas.harvard.edu.