Genetic Testing: Promise and Peril
Ottawa, Ontario, May 5, 2003

Should we be able to patent genes?

We're born with them. But if you need to identify some of your genes, or use them outside your body, you might well have to pay. That's because patenting newly discovered genes in creatures from worms to humans, is now a matter of course.

For many people the fact that someone holds a patent on part of them is a troubling notion.

"It was an issue that came up right at the start of the Human Genome Project," says Timothy Caulfield. "What's happened is, primarily flowing from the United States, they take the view that genes are like finding a new chemical. If you can purify it, and find a use for it, you can patent it."

There are currently about 35,000 gene-based patents in the United States and about a tenth that number in Canada.

Concern over the impact of gene patenting on health care systems is highlighted by the BRCA genes used in breast cancer screening. Every time a screening test is done using one of these genes a royalty payment must be paid to Myriad Genetics, which owns the patents on them. Many governments have balked at what they believe is the exorbitant cost of the test.

"How do we harmonize our innovation and health care policy agendas so that these two very important social agendas don't collide ten years from now?" asks Caulfield.

However, Alan Bernstein says that patents play a critical role in creating an orderly genomics playing field:

"I don't think patenting genes is a bad thing. Patenting clears things up as to who actually owns a gene," says Alan Bernstein. As a result, pharmaceutical companies can do critical research confident that they're not going to be broadsided by legal confusion over ownership.