From Bloomberg Law:

“The WTO petition has shone a spotlight on how Trump’s patent-friendly policies have been in tension with public welfare interests,” said Charles Duan, a senior fellow at R Street Institute. “I imagine that the Biden administration wants to show a clean break from those policies.”

A departure from Iancu-era policies could hasten the entry of generic drugs into the market while complicating brand companies’ attempts to secure additional patents on existing drugs, attorneys say. Biden’s backing of the waiver also suggests a patent office open to campaigning for drug access reform.

“You’ll have an office at least willing to entertain those thoughts and consider how the patent office can be improved rather than simply going with the PTO as a customer service narrative that flowed strongly in the Trump administration,” Duan said. “The window is open” for reforms, he said.

That position is championed by drug companies, including vaccine producers Pfizer Inc. and Johnson & Johnson. Yet with Biden’s backing of the waiver, Duan said “the message seems to be that the administration isn’t taking the pharmaceutical industry’s party lines at face value.”

The Trump administration was “taking positions that were largely siding with the pharma industry, contrary to what the global community asked for,” Duan said, noting a proposed reform to the Bayh Doyle Act that would make it harder for the government to license drug patents.

“The WTO petition basically creates an opportunity for the Biden administration to weigh in on whether they’ll continue those policies,” Duan said.

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