Myriad Genetics CEO Claims He Owns Your Genes
With the Supreme Court about to hear a landmark case on gene patents, Myriad Genetics, the company that owns the patents under scrutiny, is going on the offensive. I’ve written about this case before, when the patents were first thrown out by one court, and then restored by another. Now the Supremes will have the final say.
Just last week, geneticists Jeffrey Rosenfeld and Chris Mason wrote a commentary for the Washington Post that warned about the consequences of companies owning the rights to our gene sequences.
Today, in a letter filled with non sequiturs and distortions, Myriad Genetics’ CEO Peter Meldrum, worried about whether his company will be able to maintain their monopoly on a test for which they charge $4000, responded. Let’s look at his claims.
First, though, let me remind readers that the genes in question, BRCA1 and BRCA2, are linked to an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer, a risk that was first discovered in 1994 by scientists at the University of Utah. Myriad Genetics owns a patent on these genes, and as I wrote last year:
“Thanks to these patents, you can’t look these genes in your own body without paying a fee to Myriad. Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, that was the state of gene patents until last May [2011], when judge Robert Sweet ruled that the Myriad’s patents were invalid.”
Myriad appealed the decision, and the appeals court overturned Judge Sweet, buying into the argument by Myriad’s lawyers that “isolated DNA” is not the same as the natural DNA, and that this distinction allows companies to patent it. This is scientific nonsense for many reasons: for one thing, the process of isolating DNA does not create an artificial molecule. The body’s own cells isolate DNA all the time, in the process of turning it into proteins. But the appeals court accepted the argument, so now the Supreme Court will re-examine this scientifically ridiculous claim.
Now let’s look at CEO Meldrum’s letter. He first claims that Myriad’s patents
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2013/04/13/myriad-genetics-ceo-owns-your-genes/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2011/07/31/private-companies-own-your-dna-again/
