Although prior to the Myriad Genetics case, this short piece talks about the high risks involved with entrepreneurship in the field of biotechnology. The high investment and lack of predictability of the outcome of the research make it difficult for new ventures in this field.
The Myriad Genetics ruling made me think how much more difficult it can be for companies to keep up doing research related to human DNA without the insurance that it will be patent protected. This article shows how unpredictable it has been to bring a DNA patent claim before the USPTO.
At least for Myriad, the Supreme Court decision does not seem to have affected its financial health, according to its latest fiscal report.
Thought-provoking issues presented here. The second article that you linked discussing the Myriad case led me to this news piece: https://www.nature.com/news/myriad-ruling-causes-confusion-1.13226. I found that it related to your comments concerning how difficult it might be for companies to keep doing research without the assurance that they will receive a patent. The news article quotes a patent lawyer, William Simmons, concerning how biotech companies should change their strategies to protect their creations after the Myriad decision. He suggests protecting certain inventions as trade secrets instead of patents and he instructs his clients to introduce many modifications to the DNA or proteins to make them as different as possible from their naturally occurring forms. In the end, Simmons referred to the decision as “insane,” due to the fact that scientists now have “no guidance…as to what is a sufficient amount of change to warrant a patent.” It will be interesting to discuss in class what developments have occurred since 2013.