Abstract
Achieving global access to vaccines, diagnostics, and pharmaceuticals remains a challenge. Throughout the developing world, intellectual property (IP) constraints complicate access to critically essential medical technologies and products. Vaccines for malaria and pandemic strains of influenza, as well as diagnostic and vaccine technologies for SARS, are not only relevant to global public health but are particularly critical to the needs of developing countries. A global access solution is urgently needed. This article offers a timely case‐by‐case analysis of preliminary patent landscape surveys and formulates options via patent pools and other forms of creative IP management to accelerate development and access. The analysis of the feasibility of patent pools reveals several impediments to patent pools: these include antitrust considerations, bargaining difficulties caused by asymmetric interests and asymmetric rights among IP holders (e.g. improvement vs. foundational patents), and the difficulties of securing financial support given the significant transaction costs associated with pools.
Because of the above conceptual and operational hurdles, patent pools do not appear to be a feasible way to accelerate development. Other mechanisms, however, can ameliorate IP constraints. For example, a key IP constraint related to pandemic influenza vaccines R&D appears to have been resolved when Medimmune secured the assembly of all relevant reverse genetics IP and pledged broad access. Clearly, the landscape is complex and multidimensional. Licensing systems are not the only issue. Measures must also be taken to limit regulatory hurdles and enable the swift, legal production of pandemic influenza vaccines to meet the needs of developing countries. This is why a comprehensive analysis is so necessary.
From a strictly legal perspective, IP systems work through the power to exclude. However, as this study’s exploration and formulation of creative licensing strategies reveals, it is also true that IP can be structured and managed to work through the “power to include.”
Publication Date
4-1-2006
Journal Title
Innovation Strategy Today
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Recommended Citation
Anatole Krattiger, Stanley P. Kowalski, Robert Eiss & Anthony Taubman. “Intellectual Property Management Strategies to Accelerate the Development and Access of Vaccines and Diagnostics: Case Studies on Pandemic Influenza, Malaria and SARS.” 2 Innovation Strategy Today 2 (2006).
Rights
Copyright 2006 bioDevelopments—International Institute Inc. Original publication includes the following note: “Sharing of Innovation Strategy Today through the internet [sic] for non-commercial purposes in encouraged.”
Included in
Influenza Virus Vaccines Commons, Intellectual Property Law Commons, Parasitology Commons
Additional Information
The authors are grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation, to the Department of Plant Breeding and to the International Program of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (IP/CALS) at Cornell University, and to the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University for support. This special volume was made possible with the support of The Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
This report was also made available at Paper 43 in the Pierce Law Faculty Scholarship Series by NELLCO (nellco.org).