Bytheway...Nooneshouldbeallowedtopatentourgenes

THE fates may take with one hand, but they deliver with the other.

I wrote recently about how Tory MP Alistair Burt most shamefully wrecked proposals to allow drugs that were no longer covered by their initial patents to be re-licensed so they could be prescribed for other conditions. For instance, the bisphosphonate drugs are licensed for treating osteoporosis but research has shown they can also greatly reduce the chance of breast cancer recurring.

However, the drugs aren’t licensed for that purpose so doctors won’t prescribe them to breast cancer patients. There was cross-party support for changing the law on this, as well as determined backing from a host of senior doctors, but the windbag Mr Burt — a health minister, no less — filibustered the Bill, talking out the time available to discuss the proposal. Shame on him.

But the gods have looked kindly on us in another respect, with the highest court in Australia recently ruling that genes are not inventions and cannot be patented — they are a natural part of the human body.

This ruling will save lives as companies will no longer have patent protection for the tests for genes they have ‘discovered’, such as the faulty BRCA1 and BRCA2 (which are linked to a greater risk of breast, ovarian and prostate cancer).

This means that research and testing for the BRCA1 gene cannot be monopolised, so other companies will be able to do their own research and develop their own (possibly cheaper) tests. This ruling from Australia will hopefully reverberate across the world now that a precedent has been set. And lives will be saved.