Stem cell patenting on the other side of the pond

By Timo Minssen

We are pleased to announce a new publication in the International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (IIC). Our paper analyzes new case law in European stem cell patenting and compares these developments with the US situation and International treaties. Further information and an abstract is available below:

Authors: Ana Nordberg & Timo Minssen, University of Copenhagen, Centre for Information and Innovation Law (CIIR)

Title: A “Ray of Hope” for European Stem Cell Patents or “Out of the Smog into the Fog”? An Analysis of Recent European Case Law and How it Compares to the US
Journal: IIC – International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, 47(2), 138-177
DOI: 10.1007/s40319-016-0449-x

ABSTRACT:  Read More

Peeling the Onion: How to Promote Pharmaceutical Innovation and Access to Medicine

By Timo Minssen

As mentioned in my earlier blog post, I decided to conclude this year by publishing a introductory speech that I gave on April 14th, 2015 at the 2015 Broad Institute Innovation & Intellectual Property Symposium. The speech was part of the session “Bringing Therapies to the Patients” and introduced a panel-discussion with Entrepreneur and Professors of Law and Business about the failures of the patent system to support new therapeutics. The text is below:

Peeling the Onion:
How to Promote Pharmaceutical Innovation and Access to Medicine

Speaking about frustrations over the IP system in pharmaceutical innovation, sometimes feels like – to lend the words of the late German Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass – “peeling an onion:” Read More

Happy New Year: From “Weltschmerz” to Pharmaceutical Innovation

By Timo Minssen

Dear readers and colleagues,

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy, healthy and peaceful year 2016.

Reaching the end of 2015, I cannot stop thinking about the year that has passed. Being a native German, living in Sweden and commuting every week over the bridge to Copenhagen in Denmark – most recently with thousands of terrified refugees and border controls on the way back to Sweden – this year has left me with much astonishment and concern about the state of the European Union and our global situation. It appears to me as if the EU and other global leaders have focused far too much on tiny technicalities, while leaving the bigger issues untouched and disregarding crucial lessons of history. There are so many things that we must learn from 2015’s terrible events and alarming decisions, but also from the hope-giving agreements, incidents and initiatives. For me one of the most important take-aways is that everything is connected and that sustainable, realistic solutions not only require immediate actions. In my view, we need to think about long-term strategies both in more detail and from a bigger perspective. Due to the complexity of our most pressing problems this is a colossal task. It demands more knowledge, better communications, more collaboration and a more effective coordination of  the considerable skills and different competences that are already out there.

Returning to the actual topic of this blog, it becomes evident that this is also very much true for the health sector and the bio-pharmaceutical area. Not only the Ebola outbreakglobal health crises, IPR debates, dreadful business models and controversial FTA negotiations, but also scientific break troughs, new therapies, legislative action and novel US and EU approaches demonstrate very clearly how this area is left with many challenges and opportunities. The recently approved US 21st Century Cures Act and the new EU Clinical Trials Regulation, for example, show how legislative activities pursuing laudable goals might lead to unwanted adverse effects if they are not carefully enough considered. Read More

A Cost Conundrum for Treating Small Patient Populations

By Dalia Deak

The issue of drug pricing has been thrust center stage (again) after Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per dose. The public issued a loud outcry, the pharmaceutical industry condemned the move, and presidential candidates are now discussing drug prices (as discussed previously on this blog). The reactions were so swift and loud that Turing eventually backed down, indicating that they will lower the drug’s price, though it is unclear by how much.

The drug in question in this debate, daraprim, is a 62-year old drug used to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasite that is particularly dangerous in infants, AIDS patients, and cancer patients. The curiosity of this case in particular is that the usual host of development incentives implicated in driving up the cost of a drug (e.g., patents, market exclusivity) was not in play. The reason Turing was able to raise the cost of daraprim is because no other generic competitor for the drug is on the market to drive down the cost. This is largely a result of the small market for daraprim, which had 13,000 prescriptions filled for it last year. This begs the questions: specifically for disease areas where populations are small, will drug prices, even for generics, remain stubbornly high?

Read More

The Impact of Broccoli II and Tomato II on European patents in conventional breeding, GMO’s and Synthetic Biology: A grand finale of a juicy patents tale?

By Timo Minssen

I am pleased to announce our recent paper entitled “The Impact of Broccoli II & Tomato II on European patents in conventional breeding, GMO’s and Synthetic Biology: The grand finale of a juicy patents tale?”, which is available on SSRN, and forthcoming in Biotechnology Law Report, Vol. 34, Number 3 (June 2015), pp. 1-18.

Our analysis deals with a seminal judgment on the controversial and sometimes even emotionally debated European “Broccoli” and “Tomato” patents, which has captivated the European patent and plant science communities for many years: On March 25, 2015, the EBA of the European Patent Office (EBA) finally issued its much awaited decisions on the consolidated referrals G2/12 (“Tomato II”) and G2/13 (“Broccoli II”), clarifying the exclusion from patentability of essentially biological processes, such as conventional crossing and selection, and in particular its impact on the patentability of claims for products resulting from such processes. The so-called “Tomato II” case concerned an invention entitled “method for breeding tomatoes having reduced water content and product of the method,” whereas the so-called “Broccoli II” case involved an invention of a “method for selective increase of the anticarcinogenic glucosinolates in brassica species”. Read More

Tomorrow (1/29): A “Natural” Experiment: Consumer Confusion and Food Claims, a lecture by Efthimios Parasidis

A “Natural” Experiment: Consumer Confusion and Food Claims, a lecture by Efthimios Parasidis

Thursday, January 29, 2015, 12: 00 PM

Wasserstein Hall, Milstein West B                               Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA [Map]

This event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be served.

Efthimios Parasidis is Associate Professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and holds a joint appointment with the College of Public Health. He is an inaugural member of College of Medicine’s Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities. His scholarship focuses on the regulation of medical products and human subjects research, the interplay between health law and intellectual property, and the application of health information technology to public health policy. He has published in leading law reviews and health policy journals, is co-authoring a casebook, and has a book under contract with Oxford University Press. The Greenwall Foundation awarded Professor Parasidis a Faculty Scholar in Bioethics fellowship for 2014-2017.

The lecture will be followed by an audience question and answer session moderated by Jacob Gersen, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Director of the Food Law Lab.

Cosponsored by the Food Law Lab and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School.

Upcoming Event (1/29): A “Natural” Experiment: Consumer Confusion and Food Claims, a lecture by Efthimios Parasidis

A “Natural” Experiment: Consumer Confusion and Food Claims, a lecture by Efthimios Parasidis

Thursday, January 29, 2015, 12: 00 PM

Wasserstein Hall, Milstein West B                               Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA [Map]

This event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be served.

Efthimios Parasidis is Associate Professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and holds a joint appointment with the College of Public Health. He is an inaugural member of College of Medicine’s Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities. His scholarship focuses on the regulation of medical products and human subjects research, the interplay between health law and intellectual property, and the application of health information technology to public health policy. He has published in leading law reviews and health policy journals, is co-authoring a casebook, and has a book under contract with Oxford University Press. The Greenwall Foundation awarded Professor Parasidis a Faculty Scholar in Bioethics fellowship for 2014-2017.

The lecture will be followed by an audience question and answer session moderated by Jacob Gersen, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Director of the Food Law Lab.

Cosponsored by the Food Law Lab and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School.

Two new publications on “European patent strategies under the UPCA” and on “Synthetic Biology & Intellectual Property Rights”

By Timo Minssen

I am pleased to announce two new publications on (1) “European patent strategies under the UPCA” and (2)  “Synthetic Biology & Intellectual Property Rights”:

1) Minssen, T & Lundqvist, B 2014, ‘The ”opt out” and “opt-in” provisions in the Unified Patent Court Agreement – Impact and strategies for European patent portfolios‘ , published  in N I R (Nordic IP Review), vol 2014, nr. 4, s. 340-357.

Abstract: Many questions concerning the UPC’s jurisdiction during the transitional period for European Patents under Article 83 UPCA remain unsolved. Focusing on the “opt in” and “opt out” choices under Article 83 (3) & (4), this paper discusses the legal nature and prerequisites of these provisions, as well as the options and strategic choices that patent proprietors and applicants are facing. Considering the pros and cons of the emerging unitary system in light of a persisting uncertainty of how to interpret relevant stipulations, it is emphasized that there will be no clear-cut solutions. Rather the suitability of each approach will have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, taking into account all circumstances surrounding an invention, its patent-claims and the underlying business strategy. Recognizing that the worst thing to do is to do nothing at all, we conclude with a summary and some general remarks.

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A Physician Fights Surgery

Physician and bioethicist Carla C. Keirns described the potentially dangerous impact of medicalization on her own childbirth in the Narrative Matters section of Health Affairs this month. A segment of that writing was reproduced in the Washington Post yesterday.

In each piece, Keirns outlines the challenges she faced in vaginally delivering her son in a hospital environment that seemed committed to performing a caesarian section. Particularly given Keirns’ expertise in and familiarity with health care, the lack of patient-centered care in the story is striking. Several staff suggested that surgery was a foregone conclusion while others appeared unprepared for her son’s long-awaited arrival.

Read More

Tomorrow: “Human Subjects Research Regulation” Book Launch

Human_Subjects_Research_slideBook Launch: “Human Subjects Research Regulation: Perspectives on the Future”

Wednesday, October 22, 2014 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

Harvard Law School Library, Langdell Hall 4th Floor, Caspersen Room, 1557 Massachusetts Ave.

This event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be served. For a list of our panelists, please visit our website.

MIT Press recently published Human Subjects Research Regulation: Perspectives on the Future (2014), co-edited by Petrie-Flom Center Faculty Director, I. Glenn Cohen, and Executive Director, Holly Fernandez Lynch. This edited volume stems from the Center’s 2012 annual conference, which brought together leading experts in a conversation about whether and how the current system of human subjects research regulation in the U.S. ought to change to fit evolving trends, fill substantial gaps, and respond to identified shortcomings.

Please join us for a discussion of the book, pending efforts to amend federal research regulations, and some of the biggest unresolved questions in this space.

This event is co-sponsored with the Harvard Law School Library