{"id":23928,"date":"2016-07-18T12:11:17","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T16:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=23928"},"modified":"2016-07-18T12:17:12","modified_gmt":"2016-07-18T16:17:12","slug":"intellectual-property-protection-means-greater-biomedical-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/23928\/intellectual-property-protection-means-greater-biomedical-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Intellectual Property Protection Means Greater Biomedical Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reasonable people understand that nations more protective of property rights and the rule of law enjoy higher levels of innovation and prosperity<\/a>. \u00a0The fields of pharmaceutical advancement and biomedical innovation more specifically are no exception.<\/p>\n

In a cogent new piece<\/a>, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Director of Intellectual Property Policy Patrick Kilbride demonstrates how strong intellectual property (IP) protections fuel biomedical innovation that benefits the world:<\/p>\n

[E]conomies with the strongest IP protections are 60 percent more likely<\/a> to provide environments conducive to biotech innovation. \u00a0And economies with specific protections for the life sciences field see an average of 13 times<\/em> more biomedical investment<\/a> than those lacking IP protections… \u00a0[A]s intellectual property systems have strengthened over time, public and private investment in health care has increased, as well as individual earnings to support heath costs.” \u00a0(emphasis in original)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why does that matter? \u00a0Because international and even domestic forces seek to \u00a0undermine IP protections, threatening the goose that continues to lay golden eggs:<\/p>\n

We live in a world where concerted efforts are being made daily to erode intellectual property rights, based on the false premise that IP somehow threatens access to medical care. \u00a0While the facts simply don’t support this theory, it hasn’t stopped activists around the world from spreading misinformation and chipping away at the very IP protections that produced life-saving medicines in the first place. \u00a0Just a few short years ago, India stripped a leukemia drug of its patent, claiming that it inhibited access by its citizens. \u00a0The result? \u00a0Due to government interference, fewer Indian citizens had affordable access to this medication than before the patent was annulled. \u00a0In Canada, an overzealous judiciary revoked 25 previously granted pharmaceutical patents and sparked a case involving NAFTA protections that could do lasting harm to future investments in life-saving medicines. \u00a0And Colombia’s prime minister of health has repaid medical researchers scrambling to find a cure for the Zika epidemic by pursuing an arbitrary and dangerous attack on others in the industry, effectively stripping a pharmaceutical company of its patent for another drug. \u00a0It is also against this backdrop that the United Nations Secretary General has pressed for establishment of a High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines (HLP) to quickly produce a report, based on the same false premise: \u00a0that ‘failure to reduce the costs of patented medicines is resulting in millions of people being denied access to lifesaving treatments.'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Abraham Lincoln observed, “The patent system added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.” \u00a0It’s incumbent upon us to safeguard IP protections that continue to fire the genius of medical innovation. \u00a0Too many lives are at stake across the world to allow the grim alternative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reasonable people understand that nations more protective of property rights and the rule of law enjoy higher levels of innovation and prosperity. \u00a0The fields of pharmaceutical advancement and biomedical innovation more specifically are no exception. In a cogent new piece, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Director of Intellectual Property Policy Patrick Kilbride demonstrates how strong […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2735,1684,2871,2872,4805],"class_list":["post-23928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-chamber","tag-innovation","tag-intellectual-property","tag-ip","tag-pharmaceuticals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23928"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23932,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23928\/revisions\/23932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}