Rare Diseases – If Patents Were Greater Than 20 Years

[Jean-Pierre Le Rouzic]

The business actors in the field of drugs are much more diverse than “companies”.
– Investors are making long term financial bets, one on five success and they would be satisfied. They are prey for biotechs. Investors do not need patents.

– Biotechs are bets on one or several drugs on which they have IP, i.e. patents. God knows where they find there drugs, but it’s not from basic research. They seek money from investors and hope to have some success, in order to sell themselves to a big company. Biotechs are not the cleanest industry, they buy well known voices like Nobel scientists and even when they fail, they pretend that “on a subset on patients, a statistically strong signal that survival had improved up to 10 months”. It’s well known also that when they meet a failed clinical trial, instead of searching for a better drug, they search to apply their drug on another disease. They need patents, but just because it is a proof they have some assets.

– Universities. They do basic research, they have the goal to teach students, not to heal patients. Sometimes they ask for patents, which their IP department hope to sell to a big company. This never happen, at best it’s a poor biotech which buy a license to the patent, but it’s rare as biotechs are popping in existence from thin air.

– Big companies. They are the fat cats. They either search for low hanging fruits, or to buy either a license to a patent or even a biotech but only if a clinical trial is successful. Sometime they wait for the interesting biotech to go bankrupt. It’s cheaper than buy on successful one. They care much for patents.

So in summary research and patents are disconnected domains.

(I was granted 12 patents)

[Richard]

Thanks for your input…very informative!