Genetics, a biotechnology firm based in Salt Lake City, US. The French ministries of health and research and the Paris Institut Curie, one of the world's best known cancer research centres, are already challenging two gene patents held by Myriad. Myriad was granted the US patents for the breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 in the mid-1990s.

Holding the patent for the genes means that Myriad could prevent other companies doing tests to identify them. The patents were extended to Europe earlier this year - this means that each time any European woman with hereditary breast cancer needs a test, they must use the Myriad one, costing £1800, rather than others that may cost less.

In Strasbourg, the MEPs adopted a resolution saying that the patents may give Myriad a monopoly in the EU, basing their comments on similar cases in the US. They said that this 'could seriously impede or even completely prevent the further use of existing cheaper and more effective tests for the breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2'.