(Everything to know about the patent awarded 23andme)

Patenting and Personal Genomics: 23andMe Receives its First Patent, and Plenty of Questions



http://www.genomicslawreport.com/ind...-of-questions/

(Though I hold 23andme in the same esteem with which I view the MJF foundation (I have such respect and reverence for both these organizations) I was rather dismayed at the explanation of plans to include the pharmaceutical industry in development of therapies based upon the patent for the genetic mutations determination for which 23andme applied and was granted. I am rabidly anti pharmaceutical industry (i am certain no one who has read more than 3 of my postings is unaware of this), thus it is disconcerting to discover an entity such as 23andme cannot operate without involving this industry. I still wish them well and both my husband and I continue to to be participants for their research and support their efforts. I just wish it were not so. I feel like a 4 year old, stomping her feet and holding her breath, wishing reality were different. madelyn)

Another concern: insurance companies are in line with this as they are seeking any means to exclude conditions which right now are impossible to predict. I can totally see the day in the near future when everyone may be required to have a colonoscopy to see if we have alpha-syn clumps in the colon...or this test, to predict the likelihood of getting hit with PD down the road.

I'm not feeling the love on this one, and have no idea why someone with their money and own life at stake would take this turn. They certainly do not need the pharma industry to help them, IMHO.

I am right there stomping with you... waahhhhh!

Really, it is sobering on two counts. Brin is wealthy enough to hire his own handpicked PD treatment and cure think tank dream team, but they are playing the game because a) they see it is as necessary to establish credibility or b)they don't know any better. Either way it sucks.

Laura

I wonder? What exactly do they hope to treat?

A member on PN had this genetic test, and it revealed that
her Cytochrome P-450 subsystems were not active, and hence she could not tolerate or metabolize normally certain drugs.

The trend in medicine today is to identify patients with genetic differences in drug metabolism. For example, Crestor cannot be metabolized properly at high doses, by some Asians and others with a mutation in the P-450 system.

My understanding from reading some projections was that all patients should have this DNA testing to see if they are slow metabolizers, and hence should be dosed differently or other drugs used entirely to prevent serious side effects or liver damage. I can see this involving the drug industry. But I am not seeing how therapies could otherwise be involving Big Pharma, unless it is to develop drugs only using the P-450 enzymes less affected by mutations.

This Wiki illustrates the complexity and need for SOMETHING to help physicians with drug prescribing today... I have to say I never met a doctor when I was still working who understood this concept!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytochrome_P450
The tables for drugs today keep getting more complex...and even within families (antidepressants for example) different Cyp enzymes are affected.

And I do agree with Madelyn... Big Pharma today is rather barbaric ...and frightening. So I am confused as to what this partnership will entail.

(my husband continues to remind me "It's just business--that's all it is. not altruism or desire to help mankind. Just business")


"...At the end of May the personal genetics company 23andMe announced that it had procured its first patent, for “Polymorphisms Associated With Parkinson’s Disease.” Patents create exclusionary rights in knowledge; they prohibit non–patent holders from using that knowledge without permission or the payment of royalties. 23andMe’s patent stems from massive aggregations of data culled from customers who have paid considerable money for information about their genetic predispositions for various health risks. While 23andMe’s consumer contract says that no “research” on submitted spit samples shall be done without consent, many customers seem not to realize that “research” is defined as purely “academic”—which is to say, work published in “peer-reviewed scientific journals.” The contract then distinguishes “research” from “research and development (R&D)” of commercial products—for which no consent is needed.

When announcing news of the patent, CEO Anne Wojcicki declared that she wants “discoveries to move from the realm of academic publishing to the world of impacting lives by preventing, treating or curing disease.” But it is precisely in academic publishing that new ideas are most apt to be freely shared and tested; Wojcicki seemingly wants to dislodge discoveries “from” academia “to” the gated community of patent law—simultaneously designating patent law as the exclusive geography of disease prevention, treatment and cure. As she explains, “Often the only way a company will even think about pursuing a drug lead is if they have assurance that they can recoup their investment.”

Wojcicki frequently expresses her desire to heal and to broadly share the knowledge gained through data mining. Readers may know that she is married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, whose family history of Parkinson’s disease places him at risk. But that backstory, compelling though it may be, is not reflected in the business model either of them pursues—nor should anyone expect it to be. As with any for-profit corporate head, their fiduciary duty is to make money. The realization of any wider, or public, interest in healthcare will not come from the private corporate sphere by itself.

The patent system, as well as our corporatized system of R&D, assures that the real wealth of data-aggregating businesses will come not from analyzing individual spit samples but from the far greater asset of bundling customers’ genetic, lifestyle and family history for commercial exploitation. In 2010, when classes at Stanford and Berkeley held “spit parties” to analyze students’ genetic material, I wrote in these pages that “we should be more thoughtful about the ends for which our bodies are being mined. The redemptive thrill of being co-creators of some medical miracle must be measured against the possibility that we are rendering fungible that which most profoundly distinguishes us and…enabling a commodity exchange in which important aspects of our identities will be sold to the highest bidder.”

I hope 23andMe will consider how better to channel its discoveries into nonprofit, low-cost treatment for all—or for its “direct consumers,” at the very least. It’s hardly a new ethical challenge."

http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/gender...ighest-bidder/