Advertisement
Biologics Researchers and Suppliers Beware: International Exchange of Non-pathogenic Research Materials Including Common VSV-G Packaging Plasmids May Trigger Export Penalties Thursday, February 4, 2021
What happened?
On February 1, the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced a settlement with Princeton University, which BIS alleged exported animal pathogens and genetic elements of animal pathogens without required export licenses to researchers in the U.K., Canada, Australia, Europe, South Korea, India, Singapore, and China.
Although Princeton voluntarily disclosed the violations, BIS imposed a penalty of $54,000, mandated two audits of Princeton’s export compliance program (with findings reported to BIS), one of which must cover a twelve month period pre-dating the settlement and be conducted by an external third party (at Princeton’s expense), and further mandated submission to BIS of two reports detailing enhancement