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Wild-Card Patent Extensions as a Means to Incentivize Research and Development of Antibiotics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Jorn Sonderholm
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Extract

Antibiotic resistance is a serious public health problem on a global scale. In both developed and developing countries, the unpleasant consequences of the phenomenon are being felt. Bacterial diseases that in prior years were relatively easy and cheap to cure are now proving exceedingly difficult and expensive to treat because resistant strains have developed. A number of measures can be implemented in order to minimize the problem of antibiotic resistance. Conservation efforts on the use of antibiotics, educational campaigns about hygienic behavior, “cycling efforts” of antibiotics, efforts to stamp out misuse of antibiotics (of both the over- and under-use kind), and efforts to monitor and share information about the spread of resistant strains are examples of such measures. It is instructive to think of these measures as belonging to the “demand-side conservation response” to the problem of antibiotic resistance.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , Summer 2009 , pp. 240 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2009

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References

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