Blog archive

In this first of a series of short articles on the implications of insolvency on life sciences transactions, we look at the effect of a counterparty’s insolvency on intellectual property (IP) licences.

The European court has ruled for Pfizer on stopping parallel imports of Enbrel into Germany. The dispute arose over packages sold in central and eastern European countries like Poland and Slovenia finding their way onto the German market while Pfizer's German supplementary protection certificate was in force.

Ongoing US litigation over DePuy’s Pinnacle hip implants have already led to damages awards of over $1.5bn, with most rulings going the claimants’ way. We have been tracking the story of the parallel UK litigation...

The free flow of goods around the EU is one of the core principles of the single market, and this is underlined by the rules on exhaustion of IP rights.

R&D productivity is an ongoing challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. Deloitte’s eighth annual pharmaceutical innovation study reported R&D returns declining to 3.2% in 2017 for large-cap pharma, down from 10.1% in 2010. Two factors are seen as driving the decline...

Medical device patents are less often in the news than those protecting pharmaceuticals. But the growing transcatheter heart valve (THV) market, predicted to reach $3.8bn in 2020, is worth fighting over.

Data protection reform affects every sector, and changes to data processing around employment and customer liaison are universally relevant. But in some areas specific issues arise.

Researchers working at the cutting edge of biotechnology occasionally make breakthroughs that open up a new field or overcome an intractable problem.

Data exclusivity offers a limited period of protection for innovators in the pharmaceuticals field, by preventing reliance on their regulatory submissions by generic producers for an eight year period from the approval of the original product.  

The aim of the changes is to enable business to bring innovative foods to the market efficiently, while maintaining high levels of safety for consumers. The categories of novel foods covered have been expanded. There are now ten categories, including...

James Clark, Head of Tech & Life Sciences at the London Stock Exchange, recently reported a total of £2.4 billion raised in IPO and follow on capital in the UK-listed life sciences sector in 2017.

Medical device innovators often rely on patent protection, but they should not forget the importance of other rights.