Name: The Gene Patent Question
Uploaded: 2021-06-10T12:57:33.000Z
Duration: 10 min 43 s
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Just like only Nabisco can sell Oreos and only Unilever

can sell Marmite, imagine there was only one company worldwide with the right to harvest

Imagine a single company had exclusive rights to all usages of a particular section of the

Back in 1990, renowned geneticist Mary-Claire King made an announcement that shook

the world—she and her research team had discovered that somewhere in this section

of the 17th chromosome was a gene linked to breast

She didn't know exactly where it was, or what it was, or why it was linked to cancer,

What followed was a race to find this so-called

Colleges, companies, and governments all devoted enormous resources

to finding the gene that could tell people, with

relatively accuracy, whether they would contract cancer years before any other test.

With preventative mastectomies, survival rates

A team of researchers from the University of Utah announced they had found

Soon after, they found another similar gene with nearly identical affects

Females found to have a mutation in one of these two genes have an 80%

chance of contracting breast cancer in their lifetimes, but the good news was that you

This was a life-changing breakthrough for the thousands found to have the mutation

Some of the researchers from the University of Utah saw the commercial application

of this and founded a company—Myriad Genetics—which soon patented the two genes,

In their patent document is the full genetic sequence of the BRCA1 gene.

21,328 characters of G's, C's, A's, and T's

that represent what is in the human body.

They patented something inside you, something not all that

The apple is too just a long sequence of G's, C's, A's,

Myriad genetics, as the only company globally allowed

to do anything with the BRCA genes, had an absolute monopoly on testing.

If you wanted to see if you had the gene mutation that would

give you a heads up on cancer, you had to go to Myriad, and so it came at a price—up

to $4,000 even though the actual process of performing

This was almost certainly unjust, and so the ACLU took notice.

They, along with a group of plaintiffs, sued Myriad Genetics

on the basis that their patents were on non-patentable material—the human genome.

Much like you can't patent an apple because you didn't create

the apple, the plaintiffs argued that Myriad couldn't patent the genes because they didn't

create them, nature did, but Myriad was not alone in the process of patenting genes.

In fact, at the time, 21 percent of the human

The District Court ended up ruling in the plaintiffs favor, so

Myriad appealed and the case went to a Federal Appeals court that ended up ruling in Myriad's

favor so the ACLU petitioned for their case to be

They agreed, and on April 15th, 2013 the case of the Association for

Molecular Pathology vs Myriad Genetics, Inc reached Washington.

In a stunning turn of events, all nine Supreme Court justices sided in the

the plaintiffs favor therefore virtually ending the

process of human genome patents, but was it right?

Up to this point Myriad has probably seemed like the bad guy, but consider this.

The individuals who founded Myriad were the ones

that discovered the effect of the gene mutation in

question, so shouldn't they be rewarded for their years of work?

That's really the question with all patents.

On one hand patents drive innovation because they allow companies to monetize

discoveries that cost huge amounts to research and develop, but on the other hand restrictive

patents and monopolies stop these innovations from getting to the people who need them most.

Without the ability to make money off of genetic testing, it can be argued that many companies

won't have the motivation to research genetic predispositions.

So that brings us to the critical question: what should be patentable?

There are certainly cases where patents on genetic material have helped.

In this age where editing genome sequences is cheap and

easy, it's very possible for companies to modify

organisms in a way that make them true, original creations that can be legitimately patented.

For example, the apple we talked about at the

beginning could not be patented, but a genetically modified apple—that's fair

In fact, patents on genetically modified food have existed for decades.

Golden Rice is a much lauded yet controversial variety of genetically

modified rice that includes a high amount of beta-carotene which helps treat vitamin-a

deficiency —an affliction that kills up to two million

individuals yearly in developing countries.

As a crop that is cheap, easy to cultivate, and already

popular in developing countries, a fortified variety of

The rice does not, however, have much of a commercial application

since the places that need it are the places without the money to buy other treatments

Nonetheless, by holding the patent, the owners are able to manage the distribution

of the seeds by giving them for free to any farmer who makes less than $10,000 a year

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The Gene Patent Question

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