Yahoo – AFP,
Madeleine Coorey, 7 Oct 2015
 |
People pass
through 'The Field of Women' at the Domain in Sydney, on
National Breast Cancer
Day (AFP Photo/Greg Wood)
|
Sydney
(AFP) - An Australian cancer survivor on Wednesday triumphed in a landmark
challenge against biotech companies, with the country's top court ruling they
could not patent a gene linked to breast cancer.
Yvonne
D'Arcy took her case to the High Court of Australia, arguing that the so-called
breast cancer gene BRCA1 -- the mutation famously carried by Hollywood star
Angelina Jolie -- was a naturally occurring substance.
Breast
cancer is the leading cancer killer of women aged 20-59 worldwide, and
supporters of the case had argued that patenting a gene could stymie medical
research and testing.
 |
The
so-called breast cancer gene BRCA1 was
the mutation famously carried by
Hollywood
star Angelina Jolie (pictured in April 2015)
(AFP Photo/Jemal
Countess)
|
"For
all those people who do have the genetic footprint for breast cancer, ovarian
cancer, any cancer basically, it's a win for them because they are
forewarned," she said, adding that she expected testing would become
cheaper and more available.
The High
Court found that while isolating the gene required human activity, that was not
enough to classify it as a manufactured product and so make it patentable.
"While
the invention claimed might be, in a formal sense, a product of human action,
it was the existence of the information stored in the relevant sequences that
was an essential element of the invention," the judges said.
D'Arcy's
case was previously dismissed by Australia's Federal Court, which ruled in
favour of the two medical research companies that hold the patent -- US-based
Myriad Genetics and Melbourne-based Genetic Technologies Ltd.
But the
High Court agreed in February to hear an appeal and Darcy conceded that taking
on the US corporation had appeared an uneven contest.
"It
was a David and Goliath test," she admitted.
"I'm
only a little person -- but it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the
size of the fight in the dog."
The
arguments used in the Australian case were similar to those applied in the United
States, where the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that the isolation of BRCA1
itself was not enough to render genes patentable.
Experts
said the Australian decision could impact access to genetic testing, medical
research and treatments in the country.
"We
have been waiting almost 30 years for a decision of this nature, on the issue
of whether isolated DNA sequences are patentable subject matter," said
Dianne Nicol, director of the Centre for Law and Genetics at the University of
Tasmania.
Carriers of
the BRCA1 mutation, in which the BRCA stands for BReast CAncer susceptibility,
have a much higher risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer than those
women without it.
Breast
cancer claims some 458,000 lives every year, with around 1.38 million new cases
recorded annually, according to the UN's World Health Organisation.
 |
A tour
group of young children walk out of the US Supreme Court, on
June 10,
2013 in Washington, DC (Getty Images/AFP/File, Mark Wilson)
|
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