CMST 3II3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Harry Ostrer, Adam Liptak, Myriad Genetics
10 Apr 2019
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Document Summary
A new york times article by adam liptak, (2013) investigated further on the debate whether or not human genes should be patentable; the underlying evidence proves they should not be patentable. Myriad genetics, has been able to isolate a gene that is associated with an increased risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (2013). The result has led the company to restrict other companies/labs from doing the same and charges patients around ,000. The issue here, as stated by dr. harry ostrer, is that the price is far too expensive and exclusive of the average individual. Along with the results came a lot of backlash; justice thomas wrote, a naturally occurring dna segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated, he said. It is undisputed that myriad did not create or alter any of the genetic information encoded in the brca1 and brca2 genes (2013).
