Gene patent spat

摘要

Doctors providing diagnostic gene tests in the US should no longer face the threat of litigation by companies owning patents on those genes. So says a committee advising the US health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, adding that researchers developing improved tests should be exempt too.rnJim Evans of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society says when the panel examined the availability of gene tests, it found more for conditions such as Huntington's disease, cystic fibrosis and colorectal cancer, which don't involve patented genes, than for diseases such as breast cancer, which do.