From 1992 through 2002, the company paid him a total of $322,749, according to Germain's annual income-disclosure reports.
Officials at the NIH have continued to approve Germain's consulting with Genetics Institute despite a provision in the agency's policy manual forbidding employees from taking fees paid by a company that is collaborating with their labs. While the policy remains on the books, a 1995 memo from the NIH director said it would be enforced only if the researcher was directly involved in the collaboration.
Germain said that he was not informed in advance that Genetics Institute and his NIH lab had taken steps to formally collaborate. When he did learn this, Germain said, he approached his institute's ethics office.
"The decision was that my consulting arrangement, having predated the [collaborative agreement], did not need to be terminated," Germain said.
* Mojave Therapeutics Inc., a biotech company developing treatments for cancer and viral diseases.
From 1998 through 2002, the New York firm paid Germain $93,929, plus stock and stock options worth up to $15,000. Germain has been a member of Mojave's scientific advisory board.
Mojave calls itself a leader in developing "heat-shock" proteins as potential therapeutic agents.
While consulting for Mojave, Germain, in his capacity as an NIH scientist, co-wrote a June 2000 journal article describing the role of heat-shock proteins. His co-authors included two scientists affiliated with Mojave, which posted the study on the company Web site.
Germain said he did not consider the study a collaboration with Mojave researchers and did not know the article appeared on the Web site.
The 2000 article, he said, reflected work done in his NIH lab in "an academic collaboration" with researchers at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Germain said the project "did not involve Mojave."
However, one of his co-authors, James E. Rothman, was a founder of Mojave and served, with Germain, on its scientific advisory board. Rothman also is an executive at Sloan-Kettering. The other co-author accepted a position at Mojave during the study.
Asked about these circumstances, Germain said that he had known about his collaborators' ties to Mojave, but he considered the work to be only with Sloan-Kettering.
Germain said he had told Rothman "that I would continue the research with Sloan-Kettering only if it were kept separate from the activities of the company," adding:
