Excellent article by Prof Mandy Fader.
Unfortunately some of the difficulties in smaller businesses
introducing innovation is the patents held by the larger organisation.
Wymedical has introduced innovation with improved catheter tip technology and
quality coating to ease patient comfort and trauma. Coloplast however own a patent on
packaging and refuse to allow Wymedical (and other smaller companies) to
package their innovative catheters in a package suitable for patients with dexterity
issues, as often elderly patients suffer with.
This leads to patients wanting to use the new catheters more
suited to their situation (one catheter doesn’t fit all requirements) but
having difficulty simply getting the catheter out of the packaging due to some
large corporate blocking companies because they own a ridicules patent.
Similar issues will occur with any Bio technology more
likely to be developed by smaller innovative businesses. There are over 7.500
patents related to catheter with a significant number around the packaging of a
catheter. The patent process was aim to protect innovation, but more often
these days it’s used for large corporates to protect their profits and restrict
innovation.
What is the incentive of a small business to spend hard earn
revenue on R&D for Bio technology if a larger corporate such as Coloplast can
block the innovation because of the way the catheter is packaged.
As the article points out there is little incentive for the
large corporates to innovate with catheter technology when huge profits are
being made out of the existing catheters. Better to put the R&D budget into
other areas while you can block innovation through poorly approved patents on
something as basic as how you package a catheter.
How can this be to the benefit of patient care and
innovation?
No comments:
Post a Comment