Despite Gene Patent Victory, Myriad Genetics Faces Challenges

Myriad Genetics retained its monopoly on a lucrative genetic test for breast cancer risk when a federal appeals court recently upheld the company’s patents on two human genes — and the validity of gene patents in general.

But it is only a matter of time before the company’s business faces severe challenges, some experts say, because that $3,340 test is technologically outmoded, incomplete and too costly.

“Science has moved beyond what these folks do,” said Mary-Claire King, a professor of genome sciences and medicine at the University of Washington. “It’s not good for the science and it’s not good for the patients and their clinicians if they cannot have the most complete, up-to-date information.”

Myriad sequences the two patented genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, for mutations that raise the risk of a woman getting breast and ovarian cancer.

But newer DNA-sequencing techniques are far faster and only a fraction of the cost of the 1990s technology that Myriad uses. Indeed, it will soon be possible to sequence a person’s entire genome, all 22,000 or so genes, for less...