Utah’s Myriad Genetics Ramps up Gene Patenting Dispute
By Tom Harvey,
The Salt Lake Tribune
| 12. 09. 2013
In the wake of a
case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Salt Lake City-based Myriad Genetics is now enveloped in a new spate of lawsuits over its gene patents, this time sparring with companies that want to erode its dominant position in testing of genes related to breast and ovarian cancer.
At stake for Myriad is whether the company can maintain the parts of its patents that the Supreme Court and a lower appeals court did not invalidate.
Myriad uses the patents for tests it now sells exclusively. The sale of those tests accounted for 75 percent of Myriad’s $613 million in revenue in the fiscal year that ended June 30.
The risks for the company are underscored by its shares, which have generally declined in price since Dec. 2 when one of its potential competitors sued and reports surfaced that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would cut what the government pays Myriad for tests related to the genes labeled BRCA1 and BRCA2.
The company’s shares finished Nov. 29 at $29.75, then...
Related Articles
By Megan Molteni and Anil Oza, STAT | 10.07.2025
For two years, a panel of scientific experts, clinicians, and patient advocates had been hammering out ways to increase community engagement in National Institutes of Health-funded science. When they presented their road map to the NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya last...
By Shoumita Dasgupta, STAT | 10.03.2025
President Trump and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have characterized the rise in autism diagnoses in recent years as an epidemic requiring emergency intervention.
This approach is factually wrong: The broadening definition of autism and the improvement in diagnosis...
By Abby McCloskey, The Dallas Morning News | 10.10.2025
We Texans like to do things our way — leave some hide on the fence rather than stay corralled, as goes a line in Wallace O. Chariton’s Texas dictionary This Dog’ll Hunt. Lately, I’ve been wondering what this ethos...
By Émile P. Torres, Truthdig | 10.17.2025
The Internet philosopher Eliezer Yudkowsky has been predicting the end of the world for decades. In 1996, he confidently declared that the singularity — the moment at which computers become more “intelligent” than humanity — would happen in 2021, though...