Patenting Medical Innovation

This chapter considers the strongest market-based rights granted to medical innovation: patent rights. Although patents cannot completely be divorced from the complex interaction of different regulatory systems governing medical innovation, the patent system represents a significant nexus between medical progress and commercial profit. The question explored in this chapter is whether we are mediating that balance effectively. The chapter considers these matters both generally and with specific reference to key contemporary issues in patenting medical innovation, which have the effect of regulating domestic and international access to innovatory health care, explored through: considering the impact of patent litigation over foundational health innovations, exemplified by clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR); and evidence of patents being utilized to deliberately prevent developing countries from accessing medicines during the COVID-19 pandemic.