Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2656
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Westphal S.
Human Gene Patents 'Surprisingly High,' A New Study Shows
The wall street journal 2005 Oct 14
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB112922829130567900.html
Keywords:
genome patents genes
Notes:
Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:
It seems a bit odd that you can’t patent a gene directly, but you can patent the protein that it makes. Since the whole purpose of that particular gene is to make that particular protein, it seems a fairly comprehensive way to get around the ban.
How long will it be before we get charged an annual fee for the use our body proteins which it turns out we are only hiring from the company which owns them?
Full text:
Human Gene Patents
‘Surprisingly High,’
A New Study Shows
By *SYLVIA PAGAN WESTPHAL *
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 14, 2005; Page B1
At least 18.5% of human genes are covered by U.S. patents, say
researchers who have produced the first comprehensive map of the patent
landscape for the genome.
The researchers called the figure “surprisingly high” and their
findings, published in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, are likely
to add fuel to an already heated debate over ownership and the right to
exploit human gene sequences commercially.
U.S. and European patent law preclude anyone from patenting a gene as it
exists in the human body. But for several decades, inventors and
institutions have been filing for patents by claiming a proprietary way
of isolating the genes or developing a specific therapeutic use for them
that is claimed to be unique.
They have also been making similar claims over the specific proteins
that each gene instructs cells to produce. A well-known example is
erythropoietin, a blood protein manufactured as the blockbuster drug
Epogen to stimulate the production of red blood cells and whose patent
rights are owned by Amgen Corp.
But gene patents can still be subject to dispute. BRCA1, a gene involved
in breast cancer, is one of the most often-patented genes, with 14
patents issuing claims to it, according to the study by researchers at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The BRCA1 has been the subject of legal battles in Europe, where several
countries challenged Utah-based Myriad Genetics’ patent claims on the
use of the gene’s sequence for diagnostic purposes. The European Patent
Office invalidated one of the company’s key patents for the gene and its
diagnostic use last year.
The opposition in Europe stemmed from researchers’ sentiment that one
company shouldn’t monopolize the use of the gene and the test, according
to Arti Rai, a law professor at Duke University who specializes in
biotechnology intellectual property.
As the number of gene patents increased in the late 1990s, mainly due to
the explosion of genomics-based companies, concern grew that too many
parties were claiming a stake on gene sequences, says Ms. Rai. Some
companies were patenting sequences on a mass scale, without a clear
knowledge of what those genes did, she says.
Based on looking at a handful of genes, some groups had offered
estimates on the extent of gene patenting, but nobody really knew for
sure how widespread the practice was. “The real novelty of the work is
that it’s a whole-genome approach,” says Kyle Jensen, an MIT graduate
student and co-author of the study.
In the report, Mr. Jensen and Fiona Murray, a professor at MIT’s Sloan
School of Management, compared all the gene sequences claimed in U.S.
patents from 1990 until today with the sequences stored in the
government’s public database of human genes.
The team found that of the 23,688 genes in the U.S. government’s public
database, 4,382, or 18.5%, were claimed as intellectual property. This
is probably an underestimate because the analysis didn’t look at patents
claiming rights to proteins and which might have omitted the gene
sequence — the string of DNA code letters that define it — for the
corresponding gene from the text, says Dr. Murray. The actual number
“could be up to double” the 4,382, she says.
The patents were owned by 1,156 institutions or inventors. About 63%
were assigned to private companies, with Incyte Pharmaceuticals and its
parent, Incyte Corp., in Delaware, being the one with the highest
number of genes — over 2,000 — covered by patents.
The University of California, SmithKline Beecham, Genentech and *Human
Genome Sciences* Inc. also are among the top holders of genome patents.
Scott Stern, a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of
Management who studies how scientific ideas get to the marketplace, said
the MIT work “illustrates in a very dramatic fashion the degree to which
intellectual-property rights over the human genome are inextricably
linked with those areas of high medical and scientific interest.”
Mr. Stern, who has worked with Dr. Murray in the past but wasn’t
involved in her current research, says the debate over the patenting of
human genes “is going to be with us for a long time” and that the MIT
work lays the groundwork needed to make informed policy decisions. The
National Academy of Sciences, which advises the U.S. government on
science issues, is currently looking at the issue of gene ownership and
its effects on research.
With the new map of the human genome’s patent landscape, a series of
longstanding questions — until now untested — will be easier to
answer, says Dr. Murray. The map “is a good beginning” for finding out
in a more empirical manner to what extent genes are patented and what
the effects of the patenting truly are, says Ms. Rai.
Some scientists have argued that having too many patents on a single
gene stifles innovation because researchers or companies hoping to work
with that gene will think the risk of infringement is too high, or that
licensing rights to the gene will be an uphill battle. Now that the map
provides information on which human genes are patented the most, the
idea can be tested, says Dr. Murray.
Write to Sylvia Pag=E1n Westphal at sylvia.westphal@wsj.com
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB112922829130567900.html
