The Supreme Court will soon decide whether a private company has the right to hold patents on two genes that indicate a woman’s risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

Actress Angelina Jolie announced yesterday in the New York Times that she underwent a preventative double mastectomy after learning she carried a genetic mutation that greatly increased her risk of developing breast cancer.

The test Jolie’s doctors used to asses her risk, however, isn’t feasible for most women. It is extremely costly because both the test and the individual genes that indicate a greater risk of breast and ovarian cancer—BRCA1 and BRCA2—are patented by the Utah-based biotech company Myriad Genetics.

In 2009, the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and patient advocacy groups brought a lawsuit against Myriad, saying that by giving a single company the exclusive right to test for mutations on the BRCA genes, the test has been made prohibitively expensive. They say patents discourage other companies and research labs from developing a faster, cheaper, and more sensitive test for these breast cancer gene mutations.

The case has been appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments from both sides on April 15.

Myriad says that about seven percent of breast cancer cases and 15 percent of ovarian cancer cases are caused by mutations on the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene. According to Myriad, patients with BRCA mutations have “risks of up to 87 percent for breast cancer and up to 44 percent for ovarian cancer by age 70.” Jolie’s doctors put her risk at 87 percent for breast cancer and 50 percent for ovarian cancer.

Women whose close relatives were diagnosed with breast or ovarian cancer before age 50 are often urged to undergo genetic testing for these mutations. Jolie’s mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died of breast cancer at age 56.

“It has got to be a priority to ensure that more women can access gene testing and lifesaving preventive treatment, whatever their means and background, wherever they live. The cost of testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2, at more than $3,000 in the United States, remains an obstacle for many women,” Jolie wrote. “I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options.”