Click below for Mitch Leslie’s article in Cancer Discovery on proposed patent legislation in the U.S. Senate. “‘The Supreme Court’s patent rulings were essential for incorporating technologies such as next-generation sequencing into diagnosis,’ says Roger Klein, MD, JD, of the Center for Law, Science, and Innovation at the Sandra Day O’Connor Law School at Arizona State University in Phoenix. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Medical Pathology, based in Rockville, MD, which opposes the proposed changes. ‘None of the large-scale sequencing at the center of the genetic or genomic revolution could have happened with these patents,’ he says.
At a hearing about the draft language on June 4, Coons addressed worries
about gene patenting, stating that “our proposal would not change the law to allow a company to patent a gene as it exists in the human body.” However, Klein says that statement does not allay his concerns because it does not rule out patenting of isolated genes, as occurred before the Myriad decision.” http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2019/07/03/2159-8290.CD-NB2019-078?rss=1