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Biotech / Medical : Incyte (INCY) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert J who wrote (1138)	9/12/1999 5:58:00 PM
From: LLCF	Respond to of 3202

Another "patent" article... in the Chicago Tribune this time, some quotes: First paragraph: "The controversial practice of patenting human genes and profiting from them has begun to impede medical research, interfere with clinical practice and raise healthcare costs, doctors warn. Unless Congress acts to regulate the process, they say, gene patents threaten to stifle genetic medicine and its promise of giagnosing and treating most diseases." Other notable quotes: "Royalties charged by patentholders also are the reason some doctors have stopped offering a popular test for Down syndrome." "It's just going to get worse unless something is done, said Dr Deborah Leaonard, director of molecular pathology laboratory at the University of Penn. who says she's been forced to stop conducint clinical tests on a gene linked to Alzheimers's disease because the company that hold the exlusive license on the diseases-gene patent will not allow any laboratory besides its own to perform diagnosstic tests." "This is something that Congress ought to look into said Rep Greg Ganske (Rep. Iowa). Several years ago Ganske spearheaded legislation that blocked the collection of royalties on patents covering medical procedures, averting a huge potential increase in the cost of surgery and other procedures." "The first time I had this conversation with my husband, he said, 'you mean that there is something in my body that if I wanted it to be tested, I couldn't unless I went to this one person? I have something in my body that's patented by sombody else? Isaid you bet. That's exactly right, said Leonard." "The ethical issues of gene patenting are beyone us, said Richard Schwartz, a technology specialist in the Patent adn Trademark Office. We follow the law, and the law says that anything under the sun made by man is patentable." "If a gene is isolated from it's environment, and it's chemical structure is determined it is patentable, as long as it can be turned into a diagnostic test, drug or some other use, he said." "Generally when someone discovers a new disease gene and it's mutation, the researcher files a patent application and then puplish the findings in a scientific journal. In the two to three years it takes for a patent to be issued, other researchers will use the new findings to make diagnostic tests, which often become standard practice. After the patent is issued, the discoverer or sponsoring institution will license the patent to a company, giving it exlusive rights to commercialize the disease gene. What's frightening is that companies are buing these patents and sending cease-and desist letters to labs all over the country that have offered thses tests, telling them they can no longer do thses tests- Watson [director of the clinical cytogenetics and molecular cytogenetics laboratory at Washington University] said, "All testing will be done through their labs" "Dr. Haig Kazazian, chairman of the genetics department at the U of Penn. received a cease-and-desist letter and was threatened with a suit by Myriad Genetics if he didn't using a gianostic test for BRCA1 and BRCA2" Anyway... interesting. DAK