Innovation Law and Tech News 5

Gerke publishes article on 23andMe in BMJ

One of the most concerning aspects of genetic testing company 23andMe filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Professor Sara Gerke writes in a new article published in BMJ, is the range of information the company holds. Along with her co-authors, Gerke explores the issues presented by the genetic information, such as from saliva samples, self-reported health and personal information, biometric information, and other basic information controlled by 23andMe. They argue customers made a deal to share information, at some privacy risk, in exchange for potential ancestry and health-related insights, but that does not absolve the company from protecting privacy in bankruptcy.

Read the full article in BMJ.

Sherkow presents research at Cambridge

Professor Jacob Sherkow recently had the chance to present his research, “A Sociotechnical Approach to Genomic Data Security: A Comparative Legal Analysis,” to the Law, Medicine and Life Sciences group at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law. In addition to his position at the College of Law, where he serves as director of the Intellectual Property and Technology Law Program, Sherkow also holds appointments at the at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, the European Union Center, and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. He is a leading expert on IP protection for genome-editing technologies, such as CRISPR.

Multiple outlets quote Sherkow on CRISPR patent dispute

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in May that the key patents on what many consider the defining biotechnology invention of the 21st century should be reconsidered. Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier shared a 2020 Nobel Prize for developing the versatile gene-editing system CRISPR; however, the key patent rights were granted Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in 2014. The rights have been contested since, and the appeals court ruling officially opens the question of ownership anew. Our intellectual property expert, Professor Jacob Sherkow, was quoted in multiple outlets about the dispute and what it means.

Gerke co-authors paper on pulse oximeters in JAMA

Pulse oximeters are known to be less accurate for patients with darker skin, but manufacturers have not changed their design or included a warning label disclosing this information. A recent settlement and guidance from the FDA could prompt changes in the market, however. In a new paper published in JAMA, Professor Sara Gerke and her co-authors examine how these developments could solve problems and where issues may still exist.

Read the article on the JAMA Network.

MIT Technology Review quotes Sherkow on restoring the woolly mammoth

Colossal Biosciences is making headlines with its bold initiative to bring back the woolly mammoth, but the venture raises significant ethical and legal questions. Professor Jacob Sherkow is quoted in a new article from the MIT Technology Review about the complexities surrounding intellectual property in de-extinction efforts. He notes that while natural animals cannot be patented, genetically modified organisms might be, leading to debates about ownership and commercialization of revived species.

Read the full article online.

Federal privacy laws protecting consumer data are necessary, Gerke says

The bankruptcy of the genetic testing company 23andMe has raised a number of issues, but one specifically prudent issue is the lack of legislation preventing the sale of customers’ data due to financial exigencies. Speaking with the Illinois News Bureau, Professor Sara Gerke explained why this issue is significant. “Companies like 23andMe are sitting on a massive treasure trove of personal information because when people initially signed up, they thought, ‘Well, I’m getting something out of this transaction’ without thinking about the possibility that the company would ever go bankrupt at some point in the future and potentially offload their dataset,” she said. “That’s just one example, but we are in a world awash in big data, and it’s not a problem that’s limited to 23andMe.”

Read her full interview on the Illinois News Bureau site.

Gerke organizes Life Sciences AI Summit

Professor Sara Gerke was co-organizer of the Life Sciences AI Summit – Europe, which took place March 25–26, 2025, in Brussels, Belgium. The conference covered the ways in which artificial intelligence in the life sciences is affecting topics such as drug discovery and development as well as improving patient outcomes. Another important aspect of the conference was an examination of legal, regulatory, compliance, liability and ethical challenges that must be addressed to ensure responsible, safe, and effective use of AI technologies.

Learn more on the conference website.

Heald speaks at University of Glasgow

Professor Paul Heald delivered a lecture on Recent Empirical Research in Intellectual Property Law at the University of Glasgow on March 17. Part of their CREATe series of public lectures, Professor Heald discussed successes and failures in recent research projects and highlighted advances in methodology made by various researchers in empirical approaches to copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret law that have proliferated over the last decade.

Gerke publishes co-authored article in New England Journal of Medicine

If 23andMe goes bankrupt, what happens to their millions of customers’ personal and genetic data?

Sara Gerke, Melissa B. Jacoby, and I. Glenn Cohen explore this issue in a new article published on March 2 in the New England Journal of Medicine, titled “Bankruptcy, Genetic Information, and Privacy — Selling Personal Information.”

The data are not protected by HIPAA, the authors note. The U.S. has no comprehensive federal privacy laws (and handful of overlapping, conflicting state laws.) Sure, Congress could pass consumer protection laws, but “it has been difficult to get large-scale privacy reform through Congress.”

Indeed, as the authors note, 23andMe’s privacy statement “reserves the company’s right to transfer customers’ personal information in the event of a company sale or bankruptcy.”

Basically, Gerke, Jacoby, and Cohen argue, little is stopping this data (potentially 14 million consumers’ worth) from being sold to the highest bidder.

Conclusion: “We believe it’s time to reconsider how [genetic information] data are regulated.”

Read the full article at nejm.org.

Sara Gerke is an associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Law. Melissa B. Jacoby is a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I. Glenn Cohen is a Harvard Law professor and faculty director of the Petrie-Flom Center for health law policy, biotechnology, and bioethics at Harvard Law School.

Forthcoming paper by Sherkow focuses on drug labels

A drug label is a vital piece of information in patent cases, but a series of recent decisions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit have changed how the court assesses claims. In a forthcoming article in the Stanford Law Review, Professor Jacob Sherkow calls this new confusion over labels “infringement by label.” In the paper, Sherkow and his co-author examine unresolved questions in patent law and return pharmaceutical patent litigation to factual and doctrinal basis.

Read the full article on SSRN.