Myriad Genetics’ Australian Cancer Gene Patents Go on Trial

Myriad Genetics Inc. and other biotechnology companies can’t monopolize disease treatment by patenting human genetic material, an Australian trial was told in the country’s first challenge to ownership of DNA molecules.

Cancer Voices Australia, a national organization representing cancer patients, and Yvonne D’Arcy, a Brisbane resident diagnosed with breast cancer, sued Myriad Genetics and Genetic Technologies Ltd. in 2010 over a patent the companies have on a gene mutation associated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers.