THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK

In what may become one of the landmark patent lawsuits of the 21st Century, a consortium of patients, pathologists, and researchers, with the support of the American Civil Liberties Union (the ACLU), has filed a lawsuit against Myriad Genetics and the U.S. Patent Office. They are challenging the right of the Patent Office to grant a patent to Myriad Genetics for the use of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes in carrying out certain types of tests for cancer — ovarian cancer to be specific. Think this doesn’t matter to you? Think again!

We have no intention of getting into the details of what is undoubtedly going to become a highly complex and contentious lawsuit that will probably go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final decision. We recommend that, if you are really interested in this, that you start by reading the article in today’s New York Times — and then chew on the article and the video on the ACLU’s “Blog of Rights” to help with digestion! Apparently this also made “The Today Show” on NBC this morning. (I’m going to have to give up this work gig so that I can keep up with the news!)

The bottom line here is that there is a very fundamental and unresolved question over the right to patent human genetic materials which conflicts with certain other types of currently accepted human rights (in the case of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 tests, the right to get a second opinion on a test result). Should the PCA3 test actually get approved for prostate cancer, the same situation might soon become applicable in prostate cancer too, and since we know that many different genetic factors may be relevant to the difference between indolent and aggressive forms of prostate cancer, this could become a big deal in the prostate cancer world if companies can actually patent certain uses of human genetic information.

For those interested in patent law, this one’s going to be a biggie! We’ll be monitoring what happens!

Filed under: Diagnosis, Risk Tagged: | gene, patent law, test