Talk:Myriad Genetics

Revising Page
No mention is made of Peter Meldrum in the "key people section", even though Walter Gilbert is of minimal relevance compared to him. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.76.134.58 (talk) 02:39, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I represent Myriad Genetics and I am editing the following on this page: creating a Legislation and litigation section, moving most of the information in the Public and Corporate appeal section into the Legislation and litigation section, changing the first paragraph as Myriad Genetics is no longer developing drug candidates in the areas of Alzheimer's disease since its pharmaceutical division broke off into a separate company called Myriad Pharma, finally I will be removing the statement 'Myriad Genetics has been referred to as "probably the most hated diagnostics company" for its refusal to license its products to any other company.' because its source quotes the statement but never provides a source, and it is an opinion and not factual. I will also be restoring more information about Myriad Genetics that was once here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Radams96 (talk • contribs) 14:50, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I am currently enrolled in a University course and our current assignment is to suggest some things to an article.When discussing the products Myriad has launched, discuss all products in-depth so readers know the extent of Myriad’s releases. Not all are explained fully but doing so could help illustrate the wide span of products Myriad offers. Also, under the “Controversies” heading, it says “… for a price many described as outrageous…” and while there is a citation at the end of the sentence, the phrase should be reworded so it is more clear who exactly considers it outrageous. Lastly, the discoveries of BRCA1 and BRCA2 are major, so perhaps instead of listing the co-discoverers, discuss a little bit about how each one contributed and how this affected Myriad Genetics. Laponsi2 (talk) 18:12, 18 September 2016 (UTC)laponsi2

What's going on with this page?
This biotechnology company, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, holds controversial medical genetics patents, including 9 patents associated with the genomic sequences for BRCA1 and BRCA2. Myriad Genetics makes astonishing claims about what these patents cover. Through litigation and potential litigation, they have amassed a complete portfolio of patents on these two genes, linked to familial breast and ovarian cancer as well as several other cancers. Many others dispute their patent claims, and accuse Myriad of stifling research and innovation by others, while charging excessive fees for its own services. Considering the scope and importance of this matter, Wikipdedia has very little information.

The current Wikipedia page has only minimal information about Myriad, so I looked at the page history. I discovered that the article was recently much longer, but that most of its substance had been removed by an person identifiable only by an IP address. I attempted to run both traceroute and DNSreverselookup on this possible troll, but the IP address used was impossible to trace. In addition to removing most of the material in the article, some anonymous person has also erased several messages in the Talk section.

Myriad is a volatile biotechnology stock in which there is intense speculative investor interest. It has a market capitalization of well over $2.5 billion, even after the current stock market meltdown.

Anybody who Googles a phrase such as "Myriad BRCA1 patent" or "Myriad BRCA2 patent" will discover that this is complex public policy question. I naturally wondered whether someone had edited Wikipedia to delete negative information about Myriad. I was especially suspicious because the Talk page had been altered too. However, when I looked at previous versions, none of them seemed to make any serious attempt to present the controversy that surrounds Myriad. Indeed, all of the old versions of this page appear to contain nothing more than public relations material that might be presented in an annual report.

I wish that I had the time and energy to give Wikipedia a good page about Myriad, but I do not. However, I feel that I must warn other Wikipedia editors that there appears to be manipulation of this content by interested parties. The Myriad Genetics page should, at minimum, be restricted to editing by Wikipedians with a valid name and login. We need to have further investigation of the possibility of manipulation. Can an administrator help? Metzenberg (talk) 03:53, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I looked through previous versions of this article. They contained information from sources of concern to investors, not scientific or legal information. There were no references to the serious articles that have been written in law and health policy journals about the patents that this company owns, or to any patent controversies. It appears that this was a case of some enthusiastic biotech investor writing overly friendly and uncritical commentary about a favored stock. It does not appear that anybody with a real role in the company did so. There is so much legal commentary online about Myriad that it is hard to imagine that Myriad or some public relations firm would make such an effort here on Wikipedia. I feel this page should be restricted from now on to editing by Wikipedians with a login. Metzenberg (talk) 08:38, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The only time we restrict articles to be edited by logged in/established users only (it's called semi-protection) is when the article comes under sustained attack from many anon or new users, or by a dynamic IP-hopping vandal who cannot be blocked. This is not the case here. The article at present is in an absolute bare-bones state, and could stand to be expanded, both about its business activities and about the controversies those activities have raised. The exact content of the expansion is for editors of Wikipedia to hammer out and come to an agreement/compromise over.- gadfium 08:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Pointer to helpful (reliable?) reference
Controversies other business conduct could be fleshed out from this ref:

http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/95/1/8

What's happening in Australia?
Article talks about 2013 court case ... no update(s)? 66.81.252.240 (talk) 00:12, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Done: the High Court is the final court of appeal in Australia, so that is the end of this case.  Among the seven High Court judges, only French CJ has a background (BSc) in science. Wikiain (talk) 05:49, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

usourced
The following is almost entirely unsourced; just inverting and lightly editing the page at the Myriad website here.

I moved it here per WP:PRESERVE. Per WP:BURDEN please do not restore without finding independent, reliable sources, checking the content against them, and citing them, and ensuring that this content has appropriate WP:WEIGHT in the article overall.

Please be aware that per WP:PROMO: Wikipedia is not for..... Advertising, marketing or public relations. Information about companies and products must be written in an objective and unbiased style, free of puffery. All article topics must be verifiable with independent, third-party sources, so articles about very small "garage" or local companies are typically unacceptable. Wikipedia articles about a company or organization are not an extension of their website or other social media marketing efforts. External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify notable organizations which are the topic of the article. Wikipedia neither endorses organizations nor runs affiliate programs. See also Notability (organizations and companies) for guidelines on corporate notability. Those promoting causes or events, or issuing public service announcements, even if noncommercial, should use a forum other than Wikipedia to do so. Contributors must disclose any payments they receive for editing Wikipedia. See also Wikipedia:Conflict of interest.

Please note the " Wikipedia articles about a company or organization are not an extension of their website" piece of that.


 * Timeline
 * 1991 - Myriad Genetics was founded by Mark Skolnick, Peter Meldrum and Kevin Kimberlin
 * 1993 - Myriad announced the discovery of the P16 gene that is associated with hereditary melanoma
 * 1994 - BRCA1 was cloned in Mark Skolnick’s lab and published by 40 collaborators
 * 1994/1995 - Development of process and laboratory to perform high throughput sequencing by Myriad
 * 1995 - BRCA2 was sequenced by Mark Skolnick and collaborators
 * 1995 - Myriad became a public company traded on NASDAQ under the ticker MYGN
 * 1996 - Myriad launched BRACAnalysis, the first full-length gene sequencing test for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer
 * 1997 - Myriad announced the discovery of the PTEN gene that is associated with a large number of cancers
 * 1998 - Myriad launched ProNet, a proprietary protein-interaction technology
 * 1999 - Myriad Pharmaceuticals was founded to develop novel drugs
 * 2000 - Myriad launched COLARIS, a genetic test for hereditary colorectal and uterine cancer
 * 2001 - Myriad announced it had sequenced the complete rice genome
 * 2001 - Myriad provided genotyping capabilities to the New York City Coroner’s Office to help identify victims of 9/11
 * 2001 - Myriad launched MELARIS, a genetic test for hereditary melanoma
 * 2002 - Myriad launched COLARIS AP, a genetic test for adenomatous polyposis colon cancer syndromes
 * 2003 - Myriad announced the discovery of major depression gene in collaboration with Abbott Laboratorie
 * 2004 - Myriad Pharmaceuticals submitted investigational new drug applications for two cancer drugs to the FDA
 * 2004 - Myriad had tested more than 100,000 patients with BRACAnalysis
 * 2005 - Myriad announced results of a Phase 2 Alzheimer’s drug clinical trial
 * 2006 - Myriad launched BART, a large rearrangement test for high-risk breast cancer patients
 * 2007 - Myriad launched TheraGuide 5-FU, a personalized medicine product to predict toxicity to 5-FU-based chemotherapy
 * 2008 - Myriad launched BRACAnalysis for the women’s health preventative care market
 * 2008 - Myriad launched PREZEON, a genetic test to assess the status of the PTEN gene
 * 2009 - Myriad launched OnDose, a personalized medicine product to measure a patient’s exposure to 5-FU chemotherapy
 * 2009 - Myriad announced the spinoff to shareholders of its pharmaceutical business
 * 2010 - Myriad launched Prolaris, the first prognostic test to predict prostate cancer survival
 * 2010 - Myriad launched PANEXIA, a predictive medicine product for hereditary pancreatic and related cancers
 * 2011 - Myriad acquired Texas-based Rules Based Medicine and formed Myriad RBM
 * 2012 - Myriad opened its European laboratory in Munich, Germany
 * 2013 - The one-millionth patient was tested with BRACAnalysis
 * 2013 - Myriad launched the myRisk Hereditary Cancer, myPlan Lung Cancer and myPath Melanoma tests
 * 2014 - Myriad acquired Crescendo Bioscience whose main product,Vectra DA, is a blood test to measure disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis
 * 2014 - Myriad submitted a premarket approval application to the FDA for BRACAnalysis CDx as a companion diagnostic
 * 2014 - Myriad licensed EndoPredict, a second-generation breast cancer test from Sividon Diagnostics GmbH
 * 2014 - Myriad received FDA approval for its BRACAnalysis CDx test to identify patients with ovarian cancer who may benefit from AstraZeneca's PARP inhibitor Lynparza (olaparib)
 * 2015 - Myriad unveiled its new logo, the first update since the Company’s founding in 1991
 * 2015 - Myriad received Medicare coverage for Prolaris, a test to assess the aggressiveness of prostate cancer
 * 2015 - Myriad and Tufts Health Plan sign agreement to cover Prolaris for members with localized prostate cancer
 * 2016 - Myriad acquired Sividon Diagnostics, a leading breast cancer prognostic company
 * 2016 - Myriad acquired Assurex Health, a personalized medicine company that specializes in pharmacogenomics

-- Jytdog (talk) 03:01, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

unsourced "co-discoverers" section
This too is unsourced - see above


 * Co-discoverers


 * BRCA1
 * National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)
 * University of Utah Research Foundation
 * Université Laval/Endo Research – Quebec
 * The Hospital for Sick Children – University of Toronto
 * University of Tokyo
 * Myriad Genetics, Inc.


 * BRCA2
 * University of Utah Research Foundation
 * The Hospital for Sick Children – University of Toronto
 * University of Pennsylvania
 * Myriad Genetics, Inc.

-- Jytdog (talk) 03:03, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)
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Myriad Genetics "Controversy" section edits for NPOV
I can see that my editions on Myriad Genetics were weighted, but how would you suggest making them more neutral? The current paragraph includes errors such as, "Patenting genes has been an established practice since the beginning of genetic research," which the listed source (blog post) does not support; it states that the first genetic patent was in 1980, which is also not entirely accurate. It also somewhat trivializes the concern regarding the patent. Additionally, the statement that the patent "did not interfere with scientists’ ability to study the gene" is also not accurate because scientists had to first get permission for any non-negligible study and had to pay a fee for doing so, as noted by the source I listed in my edit. I'm just not entirely sure how to edit or replace the current sentence stating otherwise without making the section weighted in the other direction. Lastly, the final sentence of the paragraph seems to directly support the prior argument and try to invalidate concerns that scientists have difficulties publishing papers under the described restrictions. I was thinking of simply altogether removing it.

MaxtonTheGreat (talk) 23:04, 23 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Update: The user who made the edit to the "Controversies" section to include biased arguments, Csa1890, has no prior contributions, and the account Csa1890t also has one edit on the page and no prior contributions. Gadfium fixed this person's edit, which had previously removed criticism, but Csa1890's edit is largely still extant. One example of the questionable nature of Csa1890's edit is the now-removed sentence (thanks, Gadfium), "Because testing can be expensive, Myriad offers financial assistance to reduce out-of-pocket costs for qualified underinsured patients in the U.S. to no more than $100; this is an expansion of the Company’s financial assistance program complements the free testing Myriad offers for low income, uninsured patients," and sourcing said sentence with the financial assistance program page on Myriad Genetics' website makes the edit's credibility further unlikely.


 * Therefore, it seems as though we should revert the top portion of the paragraph in question to the edit before Csa1890's and add a source to the statement, "Patenting [genes] would constitute an obstacle to biomedical research worldwide." If there's consensus, I can do so.


 * MaxtonTheGreat (talk) 22:32, 28 August 2018 (UTC)