Information 2021 Life Science Intellectual Property Forum How to handle IP rights in pandemic response measures including COVID-19
The "2021 Life Science IP Forum" will be held on Monday, February 22, 2021 at 1:00 p.m. via online seminar.
The spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 has had a serious impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the world. In terms of social and economic activities, the spread of infection has triggered digitization, accelerated work style reforms, globalization, and supply chain rethinking, as well as a growing need for vaccine and therapeutic drug development, directed at pharmaceutical companies and their industries Patent rights have become an obstacle in dealing with COVID-19 Despite the lack of recognized cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a Solidarity Call to Action to ensure access to medicines and vaccines in the event of a pandemic, It called for a voluntary framework for sharing knowledge, intellectual property, and data necessary to address COVID-19, as well as a non-exclusive, worldwide voluntary license to owners of therapeutic, diagnostic, and vaccine-related intellectual property, among others.
In the pharmaceutical industry, the intellectual property system, especially the patent system, is an important system that supports a series of long-term and costly R&D innovation cycles, in which the costs of R&D are recovered by granting monopolies to patent holders for a certain period of time, and investment is made in the next round of R&D. Under this system, pharmaceutical companies Under this system, pharmaceutical companies have developed and provided many medicines and vaccines, contributing to the welfare of mankind. At the same time, in its statement "Priority Issues and Activities on Global Health," the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Japan (PMAJ) states that appropriate protection of intellectual property is extremely important for the continued development of new drugs, but that it aims for flexible operation of patent rights with regard to the diffusion of drugs in emerging countries, including whether rights should be exercised and relaxation of licensing conditions. In its proposal for the creation of drugs and vaccines for the treatment of infectious diseases, the Japanese government stated that it would promote collaboration and negotiation with various stakeholders, including foreign governments, review bodies, and research institutes, in order to promote international harmonization of regulations to enable simultaneous worldwide approval in the event of a pandemic. Meanwhile, the Government of Japan declared at the 75th United Nations General Assembly that it will fully support the development of therapeutic drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics and ensure equitable access, including for developing countries, to protect lives from new coronavirus infection, and will encourage international organizations to ensure that the international framework achieves results, and that a "patent rights pool" framework is also The declaration also proposes a "patent rights pooling" framework.
As one of the mechanisms to promote the diffusion of medicines in developing countries, the Medicines The Medicines Patent Pool was established by UNITAID in July 2010 with the aim of contributing to the improvement of health in developing countries through the dissemination of high quality, safe, effective, more appropriate, and affordable medicines through the Medicines Patent Pool mechanism. On the other hand, the production and management of vaccines and high-molecular medicines require huge costs and facilities compared to those for low-molecular medicines, and it is argued that the Medicines Patent Pool and other mechanisms that worked for low-molecular medicines may not work immediately for the dissemination of vaccines and high-molecular medicines.
Under these circumstances, in the pharmaceutical industry, industry, academia, and government are collaborating at an unprecedented speed to conduct research and development to respond to COVID-19. In this forum, we will introduce the current status of such drug development and discuss how to balance the protection of IP rights as a driver of the R&D innovation cycle and the use of IP rights for access to medicines that can solve life-threatening diseases in the face of pandemics, including COVID-19, and what kind of mechanism should be used to protect IP rights. The panelists representing industry, academia, and government will discuss how to strike a balance between the two.
