By Jean Marbella, The Baltimore Sun
9:31 p.m. EDT, June 13, 2013

Researchers hailed the Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that bans the patenting of human DNA, saying it would expand access to genetic testing for disease at lower cost to patients.
In a unanimous decision, the justices said Myriad Genetics did not have exclusive rights to the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes that are linked to significantly greater risk for breast cancer and thus should not be the only company allowed to test for it.
"Myriad did not create anything," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for his fellow justices. "To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention."
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The ruling could have broad implications as scientists continue to work on identifying gene sequences as a way of providing "personalized" medicine — developing tests that predict who is at greater risk of contracting illnesses and enabling patients to take preventive measures to head off the disease.
Myriad was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of patients and researchers, including Dr. Haig Kazazian, a professor at the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University.
Kazazian had been testing hundreds of patients a year for BRCA when a letter from Myriad arrived in 1999 at the University of Pennsylvania lab where he was working: "Cease and desist."
"We actually had to stop," said Kazazian, a bit of outrage still evident in his voice 14 years later. "This was not good for women who were at risk for this serious disease.
"We had to refer all our patients to Myriad," said Kazazian. "There was no competition, so they could charge whatever they wanted to charge. You couldn't get a second opinion if you had a positive result."
Actress Angelina Jolie recently underwent a double mastectomy after learning she carries the BRCA 1 mutation. Her mother had died of ovarian cancer in 2007 at the age of 56.
"My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent," the actress wrote in a New York Times opinion piece.
Hereditary versions of breast and ovarian cancers make up a fraction of total cases. But BRCA mutations are responsible for most of the inherited forms of those cancers.
Dr. Alan Shuldiner, who directs the University of Maryland's program in personalized and genomic medicine, expects the Supreme Court ruling to increase access to testing. He noted that one company is the sole tester for an uncommon form of diabetes because it has a patent.
"I think more people will be screened pre-emptively," he said, "and costs will come down."
The ruling did not go entirely against Myriad. The justices' ban on the patenting of genes applies only to natural human genes; synthetically produced genetic material known as cDNA can still be patented.
"There is still some room here," Shuldiner said. "Where more money is to be made is with the identification of the genetic cause of a disease — that essentially identifies new targets for pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs. And that's perfectly patentable."
"It's a huge step forward in clarifying whether the discovering of genetic information can be patented, and the answer is no," said Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, professor of bioethics and public policy at Hopkins' Berman Institute of Bioethics.
Kahn said it was telling that Myriad's stock initially rose after the ruling, before ending the day down 5 percent. Rather than squelch research and development, he said, the ruling could spark more of it.
"That is how the system ought to work," he said, with basic science conducted at universities or agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, then made available for everyone to use, including private companies that develop tests and treatments.
The ruling should "provide greater incentive to innovate," he said, "but we'll see."
Industry lawyers had worried that the court might issue a sweeping decision that wiped away patents for genetically engineered drugs or farm products on the theory that they were derived from or copied from natural genes.