(photo from: https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/nih-turning-discovery-into-health/personalized-medicine)
Biotechnology has been a significant area for patent applications. Who does not like the idea of anti-aging or curing cancers?
The idea of personalized medicine has been around for years. It means, instead of a universal drug for a disease, the scientists analyze a patient’s personal genetic profile and make the “cocktail” of drugs that is most suitable for the genetic profile. The concept of personalized medicine enables doctors and scientists to easily (well, it may not be very easy, but probably easier than developing a new drug from scratch) combine existing drugs and create many more new patents that are specifically tailored to the needs of a single patient or a group of patients, given the topics discussed today at class that any improvements on patents count as new patents.
For example, in cancer treatment, it has been common to see combined therapies where two or more drugs or different types of therapy such as immunotherapy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, work in different mechanisms that are utilized to treat the same patient.
In a few cases (Mayo, Vanda, and Endo decisions) in the US, “it seems that the addition of a treatment step to the claims and the narrowing of the patent’s scope by adding a specific disease and drug are both effective measures for getting the claims allowed”.
This area remains murky in Canada and I am curious to see what the law says. Before it is settled, here is the opportunity to file a ton of patents on possible treatment cocktails based on individual genetic profiles. Who’s in?
(I am happy to discuss this further preferably after exams, and best of luck to everyone with your finals!)
https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/nih-turning-discovery-into-health/personalized-medicine
https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=4893&context=nclr
Communications Law