A federal appeals court upheld the Myriad Genetics, after a legal battle to whether the U.S. company could keep its patents on genes associated with an inherited form of breast cancer.
The decision overturns a lower court decision and allows Utah-based company to keep its patents on isolated genes, called BRCA1 and BRCA2, despite complaints from rights groups who say it creates an unfair monopoly and limited health female choice.
U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals decided patents on isolated DNA molecules can be organized in accordance with the ?long experience?, as well as the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), the last 29 years.
The 2-1 court decision also stated that the company can process five patents broadly framed to compare or analyze DNA sequences, as were the ?abstract mental processes.?
However, a spokesman for Myriad, said the Court does not hurt the company?s ability to test the isolation of genes.
?Our intellectual property position is no different today than before the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), even brought the matter?, Rebecca Chambers, head of investor relations, told the AFP.
He said the company is still 232 patents, or actions, which explains how to test ?as part of the 23 patents, which describe how we can make the test BRAC analysis, which is not even part of this cause.?
Supported by the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, Myriad has made a number of U.S. patents in the mid-1990s in two genes ? BRCA1 and BRCA2 ? strongly associated with hereditary forms of breast and ovarian cancer in women.
According to the National Cancer Institute, 12 percent of women in the general population to develop breast cancer during their lifetime, compared with 60 percent of women who have inherited a mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2.
With ovarian cancer, the 1.4 percent of women diagnosed in their lives, but the number rises to 15-40 percent of women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation.
Patents held by Myriad said it has ?the exclusive right to perform diagnostic tests for BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and prevents the investigator review, although the genes, unless you have received permission to Myriad,? the ACLU said in a statement.
A major complaint in the lawsuit, filed in 2009 by a coalition of patient advocacy and medical groups represented by the ACLU, was that the company exercised too much control over testing and costs.
?Monopoly Myriad BRCA genes, it is impossible for women to have access to alternative test or get a totally different opinion about their performance. It also gives Myriad to charge a high price for his tests, ?the ACLU lawyer Sandra Park AFP.
ACLU has consulted with its customers and will soon decide whether to call all 12 members of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit or appeal to the Supreme Court, she said.
Robert Cook-Deegan analyst at the Institute of Genome Sciences and Policy at Duke University in North Carolina, said he expected the legal battle continues over whether human DNA is something that can be patented and proprietary.
?This is probably not the last step in this game,? he said. ?The fact that all three judges gave their very different ways of thinking suggests to me that there will be a second round to go in here.?
If the case reaches the Supreme Court, said the result would be ?very unpredictable.?
But Friday?s decision is expected some waves in the biotechnology industry or the U.S. stock market.
?The impact of the decision of Federal District Myriad case, the biotech industry would be minimal,? said Biotech intellectual property lawyer, Marie Roberte Makowski.
?At least for now, this decision sets a level of certainty of patents in industry and research efforts.?
Biotechnology companies began patenting of genes and genetic material in the 1980s. More than 20 percent of the 24,000 patents on human genes has been published since then have been in the United States.
A gene within the human body are not patentable. But when he is identified, removed and isolated, a company may request exclusive rights to exploit it for commercial purposes.
Only a handful of countries ? including Brazil and Chile ? do not allow patents on genes, in any form
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