Category Archives: Patently BIOtech

The Real Reason Why Salk Refused to Patent the Polio Vaccine

Vaccine

A guest writer in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal repeated the oft quoted Jonas Salk statement about his Polio vaccine: “There is no patent.  Could you patent the sun?”  Many use this statement as the moral impetus for refusing patents on medically important innovations (see Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story).  Unfortunately, Jonas Salk created a myth that day by leaving out several crucial details. As pointed out by Robert Cook-Deegan at Read More >

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Brazilian Innovation: A Patent Success

plant

The story of Acheflan highlights the role of patents in homegrown innovation in developing countries.  Professor Michael Ryan of George Washington University Law School reviewed several case studies (including Acheflan) in Brazil that highlight the differences in biomedical innovation both pre- and post-intellectual property reforms. In the early 1980’s, Ache Laboratorios Farmaceuticos (a Brazilian generics manufacturer) became aware of a plant that grew near coastal cities that local fishermen would mash into an oil rub Read More >

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