WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, NODAR KHERKHEULIDZE
On Monday (March 26), the United States Supreme Court ordered that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit re-examine two gene patents held by Myriad Genetics Inc., previously determined to be valid by the High Court. The Supreme Court had initially decided that Myriad could patent two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, for use in cancer screening, but decided to send the case back to the lower courts after last week’s decision to deny Prometheus Laboratories' patents for biomarkers that help calibrate drug dosages, reported Reuters.
Myriad’s test, BRCAnalysis, screens for mutations associated with increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. It has held the patents for 16 years, but in 2009 the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), American Civil Liberties Union, the Association for ...
