For a long time I have felt that the idea that a company can come along and patent a DNA sequence struck me as ridicoulous, unjust and unfair. Sadly, the people in charge at the responsible patent offices did not see it as such and they allowed companies to not only patent sequences that they "discovered" but restricted other organisations from doing any work on those genes.
Happily, a lawsuit in the US is challenging a particular decision to issue such a patent to Myriad Genetics of Salt Lake City. More info on the lawsuit can be found in this article from the New York Times. What the lawsuit is arguing is that gene patents actually restrict the practice of medicine and new research. I would go a step further, by what moral right does a company get to take out a patent on my basic makeup? It is enough that they have found the gene in question and it is only fair that they should be able to recover their research costs as well as make a profit for the financial risk they took in carrying out this research, but to get a patent on the gene so that no-one else can do any additional research is obscene.
What is particularly disturbing and dangerous about this idea of patenting individual geme sequences is that at the moment research is being done on individual sequences looking at singular effects. But what happens when someone is trying to do research on something that requires the analysis of the effects of one gene on another? and what if one wants to analyse the effects of multiple gene sequences? They have to get permission from each organisation that has patented each of the genes they would want to test. I can imagine large corporations would strugle to contact 2-20,000 patent holders and get the appropriate licences, but smaller labs would not have the resources to do any such research to the detriment of all of us.
I hope Myriad loses this lawsuit, I would like to see the whole gene patent system abolished and something fair put in its place.
Happily, a lawsuit in the US is challenging a particular decision to issue such a patent to Myriad Genetics of Salt Lake City. More info on the lawsuit can be found in this article from the New York Times. What the lawsuit is arguing is that gene patents actually restrict the practice of medicine and new research. I would go a step further, by what moral right does a company get to take out a patent on my basic makeup? It is enough that they have found the gene in question and it is only fair that they should be able to recover their research costs as well as make a profit for the financial risk they took in carrying out this research, but to get a patent on the gene so that no-one else can do any additional research is obscene.
What is particularly disturbing and dangerous about this idea of patenting individual geme sequences is that at the moment research is being done on individual sequences looking at singular effects. But what happens when someone is trying to do research on something that requires the analysis of the effects of one gene on another? and what if one wants to analyse the effects of multiple gene sequences? They have to get permission from each organisation that has patented each of the genes they would want to test. I can imagine large corporations would strugle to contact 2-20,000 patent holders and get the appropriate licences, but smaller labs would not have the resources to do any such research to the detriment of all of us.
I hope Myriad loses this lawsuit, I would like to see the whole gene patent system abolished and something fair put in its place.
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