Can’t solve either advantage – overturning Myriad is key to biotech competitiveness

Proponents of gene patent eligibility have raised several concerns that argue for the ability to patent genes. Chief among them are fears that the lack of gene patentability is (1) eroding America’s place in the world market for biotech innovation and (2) on balance, harming access to healthcare.229

Those who support the ability to patent genes are troubled by the shift in capital investment away from the biotech industry.230 Studies like Professor Taylor’s have caused them to raise the alarm over the United States’s place as a global leader in biotech.231 Their basic argument is that, if genes cannot be patented, investment firms will be less willing to invest in biotechs working on gene-based technologies since such investments will be riskier.232 This lack of investment, in their view, will lead to an overall dampening effect on the industry.233 Meanwhile, other countries, such as the EU, Japan, and China, continue to uphold the validity of gene patents.234 Investment firms will thus be motivated to shift resources abroad.235 The United States has enjoyed a place of prominence in the biotech industry for the last half century.236 Some attribute this in part to the United States’s liberal grant of gene patent rights pre-Myriad that spurred the creation of some of the United States’s major biotechs.237 Proponents argue that, if the Court’s ban on gene patents is not overcome soon, the United States will lose its position in the global biotech marketplace and that, if this were to happen, it might never be able to catch back up to other countries.238