From diseases to climate change, we need new solutions more than ever – yet patents may be slowing us down. For example, there is growing evidence new drug development speeds up once patents expire.
There is presently no end in sight to the drug supply shortage.
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The incentives to bring manufacturing back to the US will affect productivity, but in ways that might be surprising.
A virology lab researcher works to develop a test that will detect the P.1 variant of the coronavirus, in São Paulo, Brazil, in March 2021.
(AP Photo/Andre Penner)
In open-source endowed research positions, professors release all of their intellectual property. Surveys of academics in the U.S. and Canada find most like the idea.
Drug patents don’t necessarily spur companies to innovate so much as restrict access to their IP.
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The Medicines Patent Pool was created to promote public health, facilitating generic licensing for patented drugs that treat diseases predominantly affecting low- and middle-income countries.
Although female inventorship has grown over the years, 15 years’ worth of patent outcomes from IP Australia suggests inventing is still a luxury for women.
Global Justice campaigners in London stand by fake coffins to highlight global COVID-19 deaths. If pharma companies waived intellectual property rights, it would be easier for low- and middle-income countries to access COVID-19 vaccines.
(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Ronald Labonte, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Waiving patent rights on COVID-19 vaccines and drugs is still crucial to ensure access globally, but the waiver on the table at the June World Trade Organization meeting doesn’t do the job.
The Coalition planned to tax company income from patents at 17% instead of 30%. While it would have lifted the number of patents, there’s little to suggest it would have lifted productivity.
Drug repurposing can redeem failed treatments and squeeze out new uses from others. But many pharmaceutical companies are hesitant to retool existing drugs without a high return on investment.
Just as access to vaccines was vastly more difficult for low-income countries, the same is now true for the virus’ treatments: at potentially great cost to the world.
CORBEVAX uses recombinant DNA technology that many countries already have the infrastructure to produce.
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Moderna claims its scientists alone invented the mRNA sequence used to produce its COVID-19 vaccine. The US government, which helped fund the drug, disagrees.
New Zealanders won’t see the full text of the UK free trade agreement until it is signed, meaning it will proceed without open public debate – despite locking in constraints on future governments.
The decision is supported by the government’s policy environment in recent years. This has aimed to increase innovation, and views technology as a way to achieve this.
Innovation in food systems and agricultural research is critical for African countries.
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Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford