[ot] Cancer Patients Challenge the Patenting of a Gene

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May 13, 2009

Cancer Patients Challenge the Patenting of a Gene

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

When Genae Girard received a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2006, she knew she

would be facing medical challenges and high expenses. But she did not expect to

run into patent problems.

Ms. Girard took a genetic test to see if her genes also put her at increased

risk for ovarian cancer, which might require the removal of her ovaries. The

test came back positive, so she wanted a second opinion from another test. But

there can be no second opinion. A decision by the government more than 10 years

ago allowed a single company, Myriad Genetics, to own the patent on two genes

that are closely associated with increased risk for breast cancer and ovarian

cancer, and on the testing that measures that risk.

On Tuesday, Ms. Girard, 39, who lives in the Austin, Tex., area, filed a lawsuit

against Myriad and the Patent Office, challenging the decision to grant a patent

on a gene to Myriad and companies like it. She was joined by four other cancer

patients, by professional organizations of pathologists with more than 100,000

members and by several individual pathologists and genetic researchers.

Full story

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/health/13patent.html?_r=1 & th= & emc=th & pagewante\

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