Fighting talk unites Pharma over patents on gene sequencing

15 April 2010

The Next Generation Pharmaceutical (NGP) Union, held in the Netherlands last week, saw over 50 drug industry leaders gathered for the Supreme Court verdict against Myriad Genetics given on March 29, which voted against the company's patent claims and, as a result, a storm is brewing in the biotechnology community.

The Court ruled that the patents should have never been granted because genes are 'a law of nature.' With the majority of industry outsiders in agreement, how will the pharmaceutical world react?

Myriad Genetics on March 30 announced that Judge Robert Sweet of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, USA, ruled that certain claims covering isolated DNA sequences in seven of the 23 patents covering BRACAnalysis are invalid. The law suit was bought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups.

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