The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7245 p536
19 April 2003

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Gold rush mentality delays medicines development, says Royal Society

The free flow of scientific information is being restricted by the current system for granting patents in the United Kingdom, according to the Royal Society. In a new report, "Keeping science open: the effects of intellectual property policy on the conduct of science", the Royal Society bemoans the "gold rush mentality" it claims is encouraged by the current system, and points out that this can be damaging to both science and society.

According to the report, great pressure is put on patent offices to grant applications it believes are too broad or speculative in the genetics and computing fields because of the enormous investments involved. Professor Enderby, vice-president of the Royal Society said: "This affects all of us. If patents are granted which are too broad in scope, they block other researchers from carrying out related work and so hold up the development of medicines and treatments. This is tremendously bad for science, but the ultimate losers are the patients who wait longer for beneficial drugs to reach their hospitals and pharmacies."

Other concerns highlighted in the report are that universities are under pressure to produce exploitable results rather than pursue basic science and engineering research, and that "database rights", where the creator of the database, rather than the creator of the data, owns the intellectual property, are damaging scientific research.

The report stresses that genuine achievements should be rewarded and also recognises the need to provide incentives for research.