Intellectual property

Is intellectual property protection getting in the way of innovation and ultimately new medicines for patients? Leila Sattary investigates the importance of IP, the barriers it creates and new models for innovation

Relying on the IP system to recover investments is a crucial part of the strategy for companies who do research. Patents can protect ideas, molecules, targets and methods from rivals for 20 years in the UK. Large investment in R&D made by pharmaceutical companies and expensive regulatory processes make patents and IP protection arguably more crucial than in any other industrial sector. For large companies, it is all about creating and protecting IP, buying it in from universities and swallowing up small companies to gain as much protected knowledge as possible. For SMEs that may not have the financial resources to undertake clinical trials or introduce new products to the market, an IP strategy might involve partnering with others by licensing IP or entering into alliances. Smaller biotechnology companies follow a similar pattern. However, the push to protect can get in the way of collaboration and progress.

David Cameron is not happy about the situation. In April the PM said: “The founders of Google have said they could never have started their company in Britain. The service they provide depends on taking a snapshot of all the content on the internet at any one time and they feel our copyright system is not as friendly to this sort of innovation as it is in the United States.”

One can imagine this type of anecdote would send any policy maker worried about economic growth into a spin. In response, David Cameron launched an independent review of the current IP regime, which should report in the next few weeks. It is clear that UK copyright law is not geared up to the Web 2.0 world but a universal set of rules that can apply to everything from social media to pharmaceuticals seems unlikely.

Intellectual property, the very ideas and innovations that drive new products are of obvious value and companies and universities alike will go to great lengths (and costs) to ensure that nobody can copy their ideas. However, as I have previously ranted, surely we could all be a bit more co-operative and share some of our knowledge for the greater good? Ten years ago this would have been a very radical idea but slowly companies are coming round to the notion of open innovation – if we shared knowledge, the benefits would be so great that even though it might mean sharing the revenue, it is still worth it financially.

Universities are known for protecting their IP rigorously – last year universities filed over 1,300 patent applications and were granted nearly 500. And this is with universities being selective about what they patent. It is an expensive process, so only the ideas with the most potential value are protected. These patented ideas from universities are then generally sold through licensing to the highest bidder. However, there is a change in the wind, led by the University of Glasgow. Last year, they announced that they would be giving away their IP for free in a move designed to maximise dissemination of knowledge and increase commercial collaboration. Deciding that only a small percentage of their IP has enough potential to commercialise themselves, Glasgow now offer the rest of the IP portfolio for free as long as the company can show that they are going to use it wisely. This is quite the radical move by Glasgow – they are the first university in the world to create this type of ‘easy IP’ policy. And they have had success so far as giving away IP has led to more collaboration. King’s College London and the University of Bristol are now planning on following suit. This is a pioneering move in university policy and may be truer to what universities are supposed to be about – creating and disseminating knowledge.

Open innovation and the sharing of ideas has even been seen in the most secretive of companies. One example is the Structural Genomics Centre which is a collaboration between a number of universities and GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Novartis. The pharma companies fund the research and the outputs of the project are shared openly in the public domain so no IP is at stake. By taking the fight for ownership out of the equation, the time taken for new drugs to be become available to patients is reduced dramatically. The big pharma companies, while not obtaining new intellectual property, value the outputs of the project so greatly that they are willing to share the results with each other and everyone else.

IP is a peculiar thing – while it is important to gain a market advantage, it is often the very thing stalling products coming to market. Perhaps open innovation is the way of the future – everyone holding hands and sharing knowledge for the greater good. It will be interesting to see whether it is companies who move to this model who continue to be successful, or those who carry on behind closed doors.