Patents covering IVF test spark row

Members of the scientific community have blasted Stanford University and US biotechnology company Auxogyn for their involvement in patenting a test designed to increase the success of in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

The patents cover predictive parameters used in the Early Embryo Viability Assessment (Eeva) test, where time-lapse photography of days-old embryos are analysed to determine whether they are viable for implantation in IVF.

The patents were issued to Stanford University by the US Patent and Trademark Office and are licensed exclusively to California-based biotechnology company Auxogyn.

Auxogyn reports using the test can improve the ability to identify embryos with the strongest potential to continue development from 60 percent of the time to 85 percent of the time.

The test is currently available in six locations across the UK and Ireland, and is being trialled in the US.

However, embryologist and co-founder of private genetics company Reprogenetics Jacques Cohen argued the patents relate to naturally occurring phenomena, and was quoted in The Guardian as saying the decision to patent the procedure will make treatments “prohibitively expensive”. He has called for fellow scientists to campaign against the decision.

In a paper for the Reproductive BioMedicine Online, titled On patenting time and other natural phenomena, Cohen wrote: “The length of the cell cycle is not an invention and its key role in development is not a new observation; it is an indisputable and well‐known fact of nature.”

There are fears the US patents will reduce the availability of a test that could benefit many couples, about one in six of which have difficulty conceiving.

The row started in the wake of the Myriad trial, where the patentability of human genes is being considered at the US Supreme Court.

Stanford University did not respond to a request for comment.

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