On December 31, 2020, Dom Conde and Justin Pierce were quoted in Drug Discovery & Development on what impact President-elect Joe Biden’s administration is likely to have on trade relations between China and the U.S. and how they may affect drug patent law.
According to the article, while there has been positive movement in terms of China’s patent reform regarding pharmaceuticals in recent years, the U.S. pharma industry would like to see further progress in ensuring more patent protection for innovative drug development.
China “didn’t have a regulatory scheme that is comparable to ours,” Conde said. Creating one that is similar would “create more incentives for innovators to make drugs and sell them in China,” he said.
While the changes to China’s patent system would strengthen U.S. pharmaceutical companies’ intellectual property rights in China, a Biden administration is likely to use more multilateral and multinational attempts to enforce intellectual property rights than in the past. “In terms of where we think the Biden administration will go, we think IP enforcement, particularly regarding China, will be looked at through a lens of enforcing rights through a global trade policy,” said Pierce.
“One area where we are likely to see IP protection action is biotechnology,” Pierce said. In the U.S., there is likely to be “continued bipartisan agreement about IP enforcement, with divisions most likely to occur involving specific sectors or industries,” Pierce said.
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