Roche Shuts Down Basel Institute for Immunology, Replaces It with Center for Applied Genomics

After 30 years of support, Roche is pulling its money out of immunology to devote more to genomics. Roche has decided, and the Board of Directors has voted, to incorporate the Institute‘s funds into Roche research and form the Roche Center of Applied Genomics. This move represents a sea change away from the model of independent research, which was in place during the entire lifetime of the Institute for Immunology, to commercially-motivated research.

Hence, the Basel Institute for Immunology will close its doors, leaving a staff of 40 scientists without jobs. According to a letter from the Institute's director, Fritz Melchers, "Neither the owners of Roche, nor Basel University, nor the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, nor the Swiss National Funds, nor any other institution or individual have found it possible to enter into a venture with the management of Roche to secure the Institute's future existence in independence."

In his outgoing message, Melchers thanks the Board of Directors and Roche for their support during his 10 years as a scientific member and 20 years as director of the Institute. He speaks proudly of the accomplishments of the over 500 scientists who have passed through the institute's laboratories. Their work, he says "has written whole chapters of the book describing the structures and functions of the immune system. No wonder that their discoveries and inventions have been published in the best journals, and have been acknowledged for many of them by top careers in academia and industry. In many cases their achievements have been found prizeworthy, in three cases with the best that medicine or physiology has to give, the Nobel prize."

Melchers also acknowledges the contributions of nearly one thousand technicians and administrative personnel who have helped make the science a success and the institute a unique place to work.

Klaus Lindpaintner, Roche's head of genetics, will oversee the institute's rebirth as an independent center for medical genetics. The company said the move was a response to the changing emphasis in research at Roche.

While immunology underpins much of clinical diagnostics, Roche has committed itself to pharmacogenomics. Roche recently launched a breast cancer treatment that works only in patients with a particular genetic mutation. Roche believes such treatments, linked to genetic tests and heavily reliant on information emerging from the Human Genome Project, will form the next wave of innovation in its business.