U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH NIH News
NIH Office of the Director (OD) <http://www.nih.gov/icd/od/>
For Immediate Release: Thursday, June 13, 2013
STATEMENT BY NIH DIRECTOR FRANCIS COLLINS ON U.S. SUPREME COURT RULING ON GENE PATENTING
I am very pleased with today's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Assoc. for Molecular Pathology Et Al. v. USPTO and Myriad Genetics, Inc. Et Al. that genes isolated from the human body are not patentable. The decision represents a victory for all those eagerly awaiting more individualized, gene-based approaches to medical care.
The right to control exclusively the use of a patient's genes could have made it more difficult to access new tests and treatments that rely on novel technologies that can quickly determine the sequence of any of the estimated 20,000 genes in the human genome. Such approaches form the cornerstone of the rapidly emerging field of personalized medicine, in which diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventive strategies can be tailored to each person's unique genetic makeup.
Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.
NIH Director
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit <www.nih.gov>.
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This NIH Director's Statement is available online at:
<http://www.nih.gov/about/director/06132013_statement_genepatent.htm>.
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