Probably most people in this forum don't know that Myriad is, again, threatening lawsuit against companies for sequencing the BRCA genes (just google it if you cared about reading it...Washington Post is a good place to start). I tried to explain to people that they were going to do this but no one believed me. Look at the stock price of that company...Wall Street is smarter than anyone here..believe me.
It is very simple: the Supreme Court Judges (while probably intelligent) don't understand molecular biology/chemistry. Myriad does understand it. And they have enough money to hire a few smart lawyers who could "force" those judges into a decision which allowed them to still have a patent on the genes.
By "force" I mean that they orchestrated the entire case (once it was initiated) so that they would still basically have the only right to sequence using current technology.
Unfortunately for me and my group we figured out a way to sequence cheaper and more accurately but the pressure was so great inside our group for a large pay-day that I was eventually unable to put off selling our solution.
So...first: I apologize for any groups that used our Auspex Genomics sequencing solution and were hoping to keep using it. We sold out. I guess we're like everyone else
But, I was able to remove the technique for legally sequencing patented genes from the deal. We still own that, at least.
I sent a mass email to all the labs sequencing on the Miseq and the Proton (those labs I know at least). I asked them if they are interested in the protocol for sequencing BRCA legally (for free, of course).
I am doing the same here. I don't want to publish this protocol publicly because we tried that last time and a clever/lazy company tried to file a patent on the info we tried to give everyone for free.
I begged so many labs and companies to support our group on our sequencing project for 3 years but no one was interested because no one believed that if you're not a bio/genetics/bio-molecular something or other and you don't even understand basic undergrad genetics then you're probably not worth even listening to. So we had to do it ourselves. Then when we tried to get labs to use our solution for free, most of them tried to charge us for that. Seriously...they wanted to charge us for giving them our solution for nothing. Then when some labs actually used our solution some of them tried to steal it. Then someone tried to steal all of our research...then we got nervous. Then someone offered us a lot of money so we felt we had no other option so we sold.
My current social experiment is this: since no one cared about our sequencing solution even though we begged them to try it for free, I am wondering what will happen when I try to give away how to by-pass the Myriad patent legally. Will people still ***** at me for trying to be helpful, I wonder?....Probably. Will anyone even care enough to ask us for it (for free of course)? Maybe 3 labs total I am guessing. If I sold the protocol to a big company, how many labs would buy it? Probably a lot more than 3.
We are in the process of starting the patent on our method for bypassing the Myriad patent. We will be first in line in the patent process so that anyone that has our protocol and wants to steal it and patent it will be behind us and won't be able to steal it. But someone in the bio-tech community should be smarter than us and come up with a better way to do it so I am hoping that I don't have to complete the entire patent process.
I just hate that Myriad was able to do this. I hate that our politicians and almost everyone in gov't is being lobbied (is that how you spell that??) to keep low-cost healthcare out of reach. I hate that Myriad was able to control the Supreme court through the Supreme Court's ignorance of this technology.
Am I being stupid because I didn't come from the bio-tech world? I mean...if we could sequence every woman at like the age of 30 or so for the BRCA genes and it only cost about $150 (95% of that cost would shipping the kit back and forth and the labor in removing the DNA from the cell samples...blood or saliva) then our gov't would save an incredible amount of money in Medicare/Medicaid because the 1% or so of women with this gene are gonna cost taxpayers so many billions in treatment because it was caught so late. Plus, even more importantly: your mom is gonna live now.
How many women could have lived if those 2 genes had not been patented and any lab could have offered it for WAY less than $4,000. Most people on this forum have to basically know how cheaply you could have made a test to just target and sequence those 2 genes or the regions you were interested in...Put a ton of people on a Hiseq and the cost per patient would have been maybe $100 back in the day when the Hiseq first came out. Or something like that. That would have made labs offer it on the internet like 23 & Me does and we would have had so many people that lived instead of died (and/or cost everyone a lot of money).
But that didn't happen. Am I the only one that cares about stuff like that?
It is very simple: the Supreme Court Judges (while probably intelligent) don't understand molecular biology/chemistry. Myriad does understand it. And they have enough money to hire a few smart lawyers who could "force" those judges into a decision which allowed them to still have a patent on the genes.
By "force" I mean that they orchestrated the entire case (once it was initiated) so that they would still basically have the only right to sequence using current technology.
Unfortunately for me and my group we figured out a way to sequence cheaper and more accurately but the pressure was so great inside our group for a large pay-day that I was eventually unable to put off selling our solution.
So...first: I apologize for any groups that used our Auspex Genomics sequencing solution and were hoping to keep using it. We sold out. I guess we're like everyone else
But, I was able to remove the technique for legally sequencing patented genes from the deal. We still own that, at least.
I sent a mass email to all the labs sequencing on the Miseq and the Proton (those labs I know at least). I asked them if they are interested in the protocol for sequencing BRCA legally (for free, of course).
I am doing the same here. I don't want to publish this protocol publicly because we tried that last time and a clever/lazy company tried to file a patent on the info we tried to give everyone for free.
I begged so many labs and companies to support our group on our sequencing project for 3 years but no one was interested because no one believed that if you're not a bio/genetics/bio-molecular something or other and you don't even understand basic undergrad genetics then you're probably not worth even listening to. So we had to do it ourselves. Then when we tried to get labs to use our solution for free, most of them tried to charge us for that. Seriously...they wanted to charge us for giving them our solution for nothing. Then when some labs actually used our solution some of them tried to steal it. Then someone tried to steal all of our research...then we got nervous. Then someone offered us a lot of money so we felt we had no other option so we sold.
My current social experiment is this: since no one cared about our sequencing solution even though we begged them to try it for free, I am wondering what will happen when I try to give away how to by-pass the Myriad patent legally. Will people still ***** at me for trying to be helpful, I wonder?....Probably. Will anyone even care enough to ask us for it (for free of course)? Maybe 3 labs total I am guessing. If I sold the protocol to a big company, how many labs would buy it? Probably a lot more than 3.
We are in the process of starting the patent on our method for bypassing the Myriad patent. We will be first in line in the patent process so that anyone that has our protocol and wants to steal it and patent it will be behind us and won't be able to steal it. But someone in the bio-tech community should be smarter than us and come up with a better way to do it so I am hoping that I don't have to complete the entire patent process.
I just hate that Myriad was able to do this. I hate that our politicians and almost everyone in gov't is being lobbied (is that how you spell that??) to keep low-cost healthcare out of reach. I hate that Myriad was able to control the Supreme court through the Supreme Court's ignorance of this technology.
Am I being stupid because I didn't come from the bio-tech world? I mean...if we could sequence every woman at like the age of 30 or so for the BRCA genes and it only cost about $150 (95% of that cost would shipping the kit back and forth and the labor in removing the DNA from the cell samples...blood or saliva) then our gov't would save an incredible amount of money in Medicare/Medicaid because the 1% or so of women with this gene are gonna cost taxpayers so many billions in treatment because it was caught so late. Plus, even more importantly: your mom is gonna live now.
How many women could have lived if those 2 genes had not been patented and any lab could have offered it for WAY less than $4,000. Most people on this forum have to basically know how cheaply you could have made a test to just target and sequence those 2 genes or the regions you were interested in...Put a ton of people on a Hiseq and the cost per patient would have been maybe $100 back in the day when the Hiseq first came out. Or something like that. That would have made labs offer it on the internet like 23 & Me does and we would have had so many people that lived instead of died (and/or cost everyone a lot of money).
But that didn't happen. Am I the only one that cares about stuff like that?
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