Replies to post #107571 on Biotech Values

[BTH]

Have you looked at the lawsuits of Ariad et al v. Eli Lilly?

I would think that the government is trying to avoid having stuff like that clog up the patent and legal system. The NF-kappa B suit was a complete joke.

If ARIAD had won that frivolous case, it would have made the a mockery of the patent system and drug discovery.

You would basically have scientists discovering genes or what have you, found in nature for eons, patenting them, and then suing pharma companies who have been using part of that gene or full gene in a drug for 5, 10, 20, 30+ years, claiming they were violating a patent owned by the scientist for 1 month, and in the patent system for a couple of years

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[zipjet]

Patents:

I suggest we back up and think about WHY we have patents.

Patents serve a fundamental economic purpose - to reward innovations and the innovator financially so that they can continue the inventing things that make our lives better. (Good read covers Corning inventing the wave guide)*

That function has never been more at risk than today. Copycats are faster and can duplicate almost anything which will quickly remove the incentive to invent if patents are not allowed.

In the drug area, it is patents that have allowed us to layer on a very expensive drug approval process that begins with extensive lab and clinical work and then application for approval by the FDA. Without patent drugs, we will see far less funding for science and might as well close up the FDA because non-patent protected drugs will not support the structure. Deciding that we will not allow the patenting of genes because they are part of the creation, seems sensible until we consider the implications. There likely needs to be some balance to how genetic patents operate but to eliminate them seems an error to me.

Perhaps, everything that can be invented has already been invented and we should close the patent office too.**

There is an alternative to a system of patents. We can turn over the funding of science and especially drug development totally to the government. Perhaps, Obama would like that.

JMO

ij

* http://www.amazon.com/Silent-War-Business-Battles-Americas/dp/0679728279/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288530735&sr=1-2

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_H._Duell

[poorgradstudent]

Re: Gene Patents

>First, I really question that most biologics are a product of nature and not an invention.

LMWHs do not exist in nature.
MABS do not exist in nature. <

Agree and disagree.

With respect to what DrBio said, I agree that the mAbs that he is talking about do not exist in nature. Erbitux does not exist in nature, but was rather generated by scientists.

However, mAbs absolutely do exist in nature. In fact, most "antibodies" are monoclonal antibodies in that they're derived from a single lineage and have a single epitope that they recognize (there are exceptions to the epitope consideration). What is in you is a collection of different mAbs.

From my perspective, patenting a specific mAb with a unique epitope that a company generated in the lab is not under dispute. DrBio's comments simply conflate this rather clear situation by drawing a false equivalency between patenting a specific mAb that you created versus judging such an invention not worthy of patent because there is an unrelated mAb swimming around in your bloodstream.

As for patenting a gene, I don't think it should be permitted. You can protect the IP of companies that scour genes for traits by giving them a type of orphan status / use patent for a specific duration. I think this respects the essence of the patent law in that it allows a company to recover their costs (and/or provide them a financial incentive to enter the field to begin with) while not allowing a company to simply sit on a specific finding without being inclined to further innovate based on the discovery.