Cancer Therapies and the Future: A Scientific and IP Perspective

Cancer Therapies and the Future: A Scientific and IP Perspective

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Everyone likely knows someone whose life has been impacted by cancer, be it a parent, a sibling, or a friend. Thankfully, there is a robust infrastructure in place, both on the public side and on the private side, with countless foundations, hospitals and research companies and centers all supporting cancer research. But is the American intellectual property infrastructure maximally facilitating the pursuit of cancer cures and therapies?

Those who remember the Supreme Court’s ruling in AMP v. Myriad Genetics recall that the underlying technology at issue related to a predictive diagnostic method that would reveal with a sufficiently high level of confidence whether a patient had a likelihood of contracting breast cancer. The ruling in Myriad, together with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mayo v. Prometheus, has made it impossible to patent medical diagnostics, which is concerning because without a diagnosis it is impossible to innovate cures and therapies, which normally come a decade after diagnostics.

This panel will discuss the current state of research and development into cures and therapies for those with cancer. The panel will also discuss whether and how such innovations are being protected and licensed, and whether laws (e.g., patent law and the Inflation Reduction Act) are properly incentivizing the search for cures and treatments.

References

IRA impact: AstraZeneca and Merck CEOs warn of oncology drug development shifts

Genentech weighs slow-walking ovarian cancer therapy to make more money under drug pricing reform

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot proposes a novel fix to the drug pricing law’s alleged cancer problem

Cryptic Patent Reform Through the Inflation Reduction Act