Health
Why intellectual property rights are a key, not a curse, for COVID-19 vaccines
The whole world is waiting for the distribution of vaccines against COVID-19 and should be distributed to all adults globally over the next 18 months. Calls are getting louder that intellectual property rights (IPR) should be suspended to allow unfettered vaccine manufacture will mean faster access for developing countries. The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, gave tacit support this week, warning of a “catastrophic moral failure” caused by unequal access to COVID vaccines. However, IP has played a vital role in every step of vaccine research, manufacturing and distribution. The Pfizer/BioNtech partnership behind the first vaccine to be authorised in the US would not have taken place without strong IP rights.
In a competitive market, no single company will monopolise COVID vaccines or succeed in “profiteering”. A zero IP world would be a backward step and discourage companies from making urgently needed refinements to existing vaccines to combat new COVID-19 variants.
Scale up of healthcare innovations for low- and middle-income countries
A strategic Collaborative Agreement to support the scaling up of healthcare innovations in low- and middle-income countries has been signed between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Development Innovation Alliance (IDIA). The WHO will link impactful health innovations to the countries that need them most and the IDIA will help to accelerate and deepen our collective impact in tackling the greatest challenges in global health.
The collaboration will focus on five areas including demand for innovation in response to national health needs and global targets, supply of innovations, sharing expertise and tools to support assessment of innovations, scaling up of innovations, and the development of innovation and scaling knowledge and skills among WHO staff, Member States, and development partners.
Artificial Intelligence in the Life Sciences Industry — Strategies for IP Protection
AI technologies including machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing can be harnessed to process vast data sets to identify new drug candidates, optimize drug dosing, match patients with drug trials and diagnose diseases. Recognizing this potential, global biopharma companies have invested heavily in AI technology—the AI in life sciences market was valued at USD 1092.44 million in 2019 and is expected to reach USD 3445.60 million by 2025. But what happens to the IPRs? Can AI be an IPR holder?
This article provides answers to important questions about (future) IP ownership:
- Life science companies utilizing AI can mitigate potential IP ownership issues by defining ownership of AI-related IP rights in employment, licensing, or purchase agreements.
- Aside from general contractual protections of IP, life sciences companies should consider what type of IP protection is appropriate for their AI-related inventions.
- If patent protection is more appropriate (e.g., where the requirement of secrecy for trade secret protection is hard or impossible to meet), the companies should adopt an “AI-Patent Playbook” as follows to obtain patent protection for AI-related inventions.
The strategies described in the article could be adopted to minimize the risks while still harnessing the powerful potential of AI technology.