Health care and access to patented technologies.

The past 25 years have witnessed a growing interaction between healthcare and intellectual property rights. This growth has been due to both new genetic technologies and the expanding scope of intellectual property protection. The interaction does not come without costs, however, and intellectual property rights are increasingly pointed to as a culprit in access to health care. Disputes over Myriad Genetics’ patents over breast cancer genes have brought attention to this issue and it is instructive to examine how Canadian courts might react to a demand for funding for a patented genetic test in light of existing law.