What future for the pharmaceutical patenting in europe: reforming or getting rid of it?

Abstract

The covid-19 pandemic and the anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have once again brought to the fore the issue of patents in the health sector. The current European panorama on the patenting of pharmaceuticals is rather confused and difficult to understand, characterized by a precarious (dis)balance between the commercial incentives guaranteed to the industry by supply-side patents and the regulatory framework in support of public interests on the demand side. Here, we first focus on a regulatory analysis of pharmaceutical patenting and more in general on market exclusivity within the European Union, and then set out some proposals for a radical reform of European legislation. In particular, we believe that there are three major critical issues on the subject that must be addressed and reformed as soon as possible: 1. the management of pharmaceutical patents through the European Patent Office and the parallel network of national offices, 2. the excess of discretion of pharmaceutical companies in the filing of patents and 3. the short duration of market exclusivity on drugs. In fact, the right moment has come to definitively reform the European legislation on pharmaceutical patents in line with the tradition of continental welfare.