The Importance Of The Patenting Of Breast Cancer

This paper hopes to share insight into the steps that are taken by companies, and the strenuous process behind developing an effective new drug.

Improvements in health care and life sciences are an important source of gains in health and longevity globally. The development of innovative pharmaceutical products plays a critical role in ensuring these continued gains. To encourage the continued development of new drugs, economic incentives are essential. These incentives are principally provided through direct and indirect government funding, intellectual property laws, and other policies that favor innovation. Without such incentives, private corporations, which bring to market the vast majority of new drugs, would be less able to assume the risks and costs necessary to continue their research and development (R&D). In the United States, government action has focused on creating the environment that would best encourage further innovation and yield a constant flow of new and innovative medicines to the market. The goal has been to ensure that consumers would benefit both from technological breakthroughs and the competition that further innovation generates. The United States also relies on a strong generic pharmaceutical industry to create added competitive pressure to lower drug prices. Recent action by the Administration and Congress has accelerated the flow of generic medicines to the market for precisely that reason. By contrast, in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

The United States Patent Office awards patents to companies that discover cures, tests, and medical operations for human genes. These patents are in use to compensate these companies for their discovery and encourage them to advance their research and create more medical advancements. Canavan disease is a disorder children inherit that begins to show symptoms at three months; they cannot crawl or walk and

Extremely risky drug discovery and development, lengthening development times which increase development cost, return on investments, and generic competitors.

Mammography, the most effective method for detecting breast cancer at its early stages, can identify malignancies before they can be felt and before symptoms develop. According to the report, from 2000 to 2010, the percentage of women who received a mammogram decline for women from poor and low-income households and for non-Hispanic whites. Furthermore, women from poor, low-income, and middle-income households were less likely to receive a mammogram compared with women from high-income households. In National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR), among women ages 50-64, uninsured women were less likely to receive a mammogram compared with those with private insurance. The two main factors that serve as a barrier to early detection and cure for breast cancer are socio-economic status (no health insurance/poor access to healthcare) and lack of awareness of the importance of breast cancer screening. The impact of these factors is to the patients and their families is that frequently, breast cancer would be detected at an already advanced stage and the prognosis would be poor, leading to mortality. Cancer diagnosed early before spread has occurred are generally more amenable to treatment and cancers diagnosed late with extensive spread have poor prognoses. In these cases, treatment would just be of palliative in nature. Early detection through screening means early treatment and lower mortality

Patent Genes have been the center of a attention for a very long time. When we take the time to stop and think about how research and medical cost affect our lifestyles, it is very alarming to know that even the natural occurrences in life can be bought for the right price. In the op-ed piece and article, “Patenting Life” and “Decoding the Use of Gene Patents”, by Michael Crichton and John E. Calfee, both authors draw attention to the uses of patenting genes. Crichton goes on to say how gene patents have interfered with medical testings, research studies, and the miscommunications between doctors and their patients, while Calfee reiterates how patients and researchers are getting the benefits that come from patenting genes. Although both authors

There has been a big controversy pertaining to gene patenting ever since the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) began issuing them. While some, like the author of the article in the New York Times, “Patenting Life” Michael Crichton, see gene patents as giving up ownership of one's own ties to “all life on earth” (441) and recognize the disadvantages and restrictions put forth on medical advancement and innovation; others, like economist John E. Calfee author of “Decoding the Use of Gene Patents” on the American Enterprise Institute’s online magazine, see the benefits of high prices on test and research studies. Crichton sees gene patents as unnatural, costly and restrictive; Calfee, on the other hand sees it as “a power

Myriad Genetics is a biotech company that has a patent on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which exist in all humans. I have no problem with that. Myriad Genetics has done what they reasonably had to in order to compete with other companies. Companies should be able to hold patents on genes because it will fuel the growth of scientific research.

The Dr.’s view on gene patents is the halt they put on testing and studying of genes and current studies to find a major breakthrough for the disease. (441) It is not only fair to the researchers who spend their lives trying to develop a cure but also to the loved ones and

With cancer requiring colossal amounts of money from society to attempt to treat and cure the disease, it has become an important and relevant social issue in the United States. In 2016 alone, there will be an estimated 1,685,210 cancer diagnoses along with approximately 595,690 deaths in correlation with cancer in the United States (Cancer). Although with the United States having a population around 318 million, only approximately 5% of the population will be affected by cancer. With this only affecting a small portion of the total population, the topic of cancer can create a social issue and source for debate

For instance, the testing for breast cancer used to only be one thousand dollars and now the owner of the gene patent to breast cancer has now almost double price to three thousand dollars, stated in Crichton’s piece. Therefore, not a lot of people can afford to pay that huge amount of money. Because of this issue, Calfee mentions that a cancer patient filed a lawsuit against Myriad Genetics, “a biotech firm that owns a patent to a diagnostic test for breast cancer.”(443). So if you want to take the test to see if you have the breast cancer gene the only place you can get the testing is at their property in Utah. “Myriad does not only own the patent for the test but for the genes themselves.”(443). Since the first lawsuit was filed, there has been six others that have been filed as well but they have all been either dismissed or settled out of court. So not only do you have to pay the three thousand dollars for the test, you now have to pay for the travel and stay in

All around the world, breast cancer has become a huge issue and has effected many lives.

“Patent thicket” is the term used by Calfee when describing the phenomena of patents hindering research (444). In his essay, he dedicates a number of paragraphs to this trend and elaborates on his opinion that gene patenting does not in any way hinder research. The first piece of evidence used by the former AEI scholar is an account where NAS conducted two surveys and both found a very minimal amount of evidence that pointed to patents hindering researchers (444), and from this he found out that researches hardly ever fret over whether or not a gene has a patent on it (445). In addition to talking about whether or not a patent halts research, he also discusses price. He addresses that gene patented tests are expensive, something both him and Crichton agree on, but also says that there is no difference in price compared to tests for genes that do not have patents on them (Calfee 445). This may be true in some cases, but Crichton brings up a defense for that statement and references a test for breast cancer that would be one thousand dollars but instead costs three thousand because the gene they test for has a patent on it. The novelist continues on this topic by shining a light on the idea that an outcome of gene patenting is the halting of innovation and negative effects on patients (441). Crichton holds extreme opinions on this topic and discusses what else comes with a gene patent besides the original gene. He states that in some cases, the owner of a gene can also be entitled to all of the mutations that occur in it as well (Crichton 442). He also strongly believes that the researchers will shy away from trying to conduct studies on genes and diseases related to that gene if they are patented, such as the disease SARS (Crichton 442). All and all both scholars have strong

When thinking about patents, many of us wonder how anyone can patent genes that all of us have carried since we were born. U.S patent law allows inventors to claim new and useful machines, processes, and objects as proprietary creations. This privilege, however, has not been extended to naturally occurring phenomena, such as elements in the periodic table. However, a legal precedent now allows human genes to be patented. In order to study genes, scientists have to isolate and manipulate genes in the laboratory. Thus, in the eyes of patent law, genes are treated just as any other man-made chemical ( Regalado 50). On the strength of this logic, the U.S Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has been issuing patents to genetic discoveries since the 1970s. Human growth-hormone, insulin, erythropoietin-protein drugs with billions of dollars in combined sales are all manufactured using patented DNA sequences.

Through these screenings, prognosis improves when breast cancers are discovered in their earlier stages. Better access to health care for all citizens owing to Singapore’s economic growth and urban development too, allowed for earlier detection (Jara-Lazaro, Thilagaratnam, & Tan, 2010). Life expectancy of breast cancer patients hence have improved quite spectacularly with early detection and successful treatments that delayed cancer deaths (Beesley et al., 2008). This means that more people have lived with and survived breast cancer (Jara-Lazaro, et al., 2010).