SYDNEY: An Australian cancer survivor Wednesday triumphed in a landmark challenge against biotech companies, with the country’s top court ruling they could not patent a gene linked to breast cancer.

Yvonne D’Arcy took her case to the High Court of Australia, arguing that the so-called breast cancer gene BRCA1 — the mutation famously carried by Hollywood star Angelina Jolie — was a naturally occurring substance.

Breast cancer is the leading cancer killer of women aged 20-59 worldwide, and supporters of the case had argued that patenting a gene could stymie medical research and testing.

“I screamed. I was just excited to know that we had it seven-nil our way,” an ecstatic D’Arcy, a 69-year-old breast cancer survivor, said of the court’s unanimous decision.

“For all those people who do have the genetic footprint for breast cancer, ovarian cancer, any cancer basically, it’s a win for them because they are forewarned,” she said, adding that she expected testing would become cheaper and more available.

The High Court found that while isolating the gene required human activity, that was not enough to classify it as a manufactured product and so make it patentable. “While the invention claimed might be, in a formal sense, a product of human action, it was the existence of the information stored in the relevant sequences that was an essential element of the invention,” the judges said.