PAUSE FOR PREVENTION // Human Gene Patents Overturned!
SUCCESS! The Supreme Court has ruled this morning in an unanimous ruling that human genes CANNOT be patented.
This is a big deal for the breast cancer prevention community because it will result in affordable genetic testing, including for BRCA variants that indicate increased breast cancer risk. The particular genes at issue received public attention after the actress Angelina Jolie revealed in May that she had had a preventive double mastectomy after learning that she had inherited a faulty copy of a gene that put her at high risk for breast cancer. The price of the test, often more than $3,000, was partly a product of Myriad’s patent, putting it out of reach for some women.