Out to break biotech’s IP stranglehold
The Open Source software movement has broken the stranglehold of expensive, proprietary products. Could the same thing happen in biotechnology?
Whether you regard patents as a hindrance or a spur to innovation probably depends on how many you hold. The biotechnology industry, possibly more than any other sector, is tightly wedded to current concepts of intellectual property (IP) protection, because of both the long timelines associated with product development and the high cost of commercialising product ideas.