{"id":527819,"date":"2010-04-14T16:05:45","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T20:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/health\/2010\/04\/14\/think-gene-patents-are-controversial-now-just-wait\/"},"modified":"2010-04-14T16:05:45","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T20:05:45","slug":"think-gene-patents-are-controversial-now-just-wait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/527819","title":{"rendered":"Think Gene Patents Are Controversial Now? Just Wait"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DNA\"The controversy over gene patents is not going away anytime soon. As the WSJ reports<\/a>, a Duke University study<\/a> concludes that exclusive licensing of gene-based diagnostic tests can keep patients from benefiting from genetic discoveries and often leads to legal wrangling.<\/p>\n

And current disagreements surrounding gene patents \u0096- such as the recent federal court decision<\/a> to invalidate seven patents covering the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes licensed solely to Myriad Genetics \u0096- may be small potatoes compared with what lies ahead. If the price of mapping a person\u0092s entire genome continues to fall, what are the consequences of the \u0093hundreds or thousands of patents already issued and exclusively licensed gene by gene?\u0094 Robert Cook-Deegan, head of the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, who led the study, asks in an interview with the WSJ. “How will you offer full gene sequencing without getting sued?”<\/p>\n

Of course, the $1,000 genome<\/a> is likely years away, and those who favor exclusive patents on diagnostics say they\u0092re necessary for companies to make their money back on research and development.<\/p>\n

But exclusive patents may already be keeping some patients in the dark, the WSJ article says. It describes a new method of genetic testing called chromosomal microarrays that can pick up chromosomal abnormalities in the genome. What\u0092s a doctor to do if that kind of analysis encompasses a gene that\u0092s already patented — tell the patient or stick to the letter of the law?<\/p>\n

Image: Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n

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The controversy over gene patents is not going away anytime soon. As the WSJ reports, a Duke University study concludes that exclusive licensing of gene-based diagnostic tests can keep patients from benefiting from genetic discoveries and often leads to legal wrangling. And current disagreements surrounding gene patents \u0096- such as the recent federal court decision […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6750,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6750"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}