Gene Patent Challenge Gets Support in the Press
Earlier this month, the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of human gene patents received its first hearing. Little happened there, as the judge simply denied motions for summary judgment from the plaintiffs, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation, and the defendants, including Myriad Genetics (1, 2, 3).
The real developments occurred in the media. The editorial boards of two major newspapers and a prominent science journalist joined the American Medical Association, the American Society for Human Genetics, and other groups in supporting this challenge to patents on human genes. The Los Angeles Times's board said:
It amounts to a judgment call about whether it's right to give a company control over access to essential pieces of information about the body's natural programming, and whether it makes sense to trust that company to share the information freely with researchers and license it widely to competitors. On both of those questions, we think the answer is no.
The Times's board goes on to back a federal bill which would cease the granting of further human gene patents, which is expected to be reintroduced by Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA).
The Boston Globe emphasized that other patents and forms of intellectual property can still give firms the incentives to innovate:
[T]he courts and Congress can protect biotech innovations in ways that do not require exclusive patents for human genes. Eliminating these patents would attract new researchers and sources of capital that could lead to treatments for many diseases, including Alzheimer’s and cancer. It would also encourage market competition for tests and treatments based on gene sequences, saving money as well as lives
However, Newsweek's Sharon Begley makes a different argument:
The justification for patents is that they encourage innovation: make a discovery, reap the financial rewards. But I have real doubts that this applies in genetics. Discoveries, not dollars, are what motivate most geneticists.... If being first, not being rich, is what drives gene researchers, it is hard to see why society should tolerate patents on human genes that act as even the slightest brake on discovery.
Given the significant blurring between academia and the private sector in the last thirty years, particularly in the biosciences, I am skeptical of Begley's reliance on researchers' altruism. As my colleague Marcy Darnovsky and I detailed in an essay in The American Interest, human gene patents rest on the courts' rather bizarre "isolated and purified" doctrine. It is past time for Congress to step in to clarify these muddy waters.
Previously on Biopolitical Times: