Tahir Amin Profile picture
Jul 27, 2019 6 tweets 2 min read Read on X
During the Q&A #drugdevelopmentinnovation after my panel I was told to be careful about throwing shade on the obvious nature of some pharma patents and to learn from the expert declarations that are submitted in litigation. I highlighted many of these experts are not independent.
Eg: Prof Valentino Stella is considered one the leaders in prodrugs, a technique that's been around for at least 40 years. He has been used by Gilead Sciences to provide expert statements for a number of their drugs that use the prodrug technique e.g Viread and recently Sovaldi.
To my point of independent experts in patent cases: can someone be independent when Gilead gives a gift of US$1 million to a professorship fund at The University of Kansas honouring their expert declarant Prof. Stella? bit.ly/2SK28wJ
My point is not about Prof. Stella or throwing shade. It's about bringing light on do we actually have independent experts in patent cases when industry has many them in their pockets. Is it in the financial interests of any of these experts to say certain science is obvious?
And the remarkable thing is that if you read enough of pharma litigation docs, depending on whether a company/expert is defending a patent or invalidating one, the argument of obviousness on that same science conveniently changes. Where is the consistency?
If we are to get a better understanding of what really is obvious science in patent law, we need to change how expert testimonies work and whether we can really have independent witnesses, whether it be for a generic or a branded company. Otherwise patent reform will be difficult

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Tahir Amin

Tahir Amin Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @realtahiramin

Dec 21, 2021
Another year of Covid. Another season without vaccine equity. Omicron, & whatever comes next, are the utterly predictable results of a lethal brew of racist/colonial structures and market-driven global health.

A year-in-review thread 🧵 (1/21):
In Nov 2020, before vaccines were even publicly available, the free market zealots at @WSJopinion were freaking out about countries in the Global South stealing IP rights for technologies that were supposedly too complex for them to make.
wsj.com/articles/a-glo…
It was an early attempt to set the tone.

@WSJ's neocolonial economics and racist industry talking points about global manufacturing capabilities needed debunking, which I did in this thread over a year ago. How do you feel now @WSJ?
Read 21 tweets
Nov 6, 2021
Next time you are thinking of using the word "innovation" in relation to the pharmaceutical industry or the patent system, or are involved in a debate about how reforming the patent system or negotiating drug prices will harm "innovation", think of this:
And this:
Read 17 tweets
May 10, 2021
Moderna's CEO on why he doesn't think waiving IP will increase mRNA vaccine supply: “If someone wants to start from scratch, they would have to figure out how to make mRNA, which is not in our patents.”

Right there, in black and white, are a few very important things. (1/10)
1. It confirms that Moderna’s statement in Oct 2020 about waiving patents was just PR stunt.

They deliberately left out the tech transfer part, and are saying here that the patents they would release wouldn’t be helpful anyways.
2. #TRIPsWaiver is only a prerequisite for expanding global manufacturing capacity.

It'll all come down to the details, and w/out tremendous pressure/scrutiny from the movement that made this happen in the first place those negotiations will ensure nothing substantive is done.
Read 10 tweets
May 10, 2021
Talking of candour, the following few sentences in this letter that caught my attention in particular:

“The proposed waiver for COVID-19 vaccines, threatens to disrupt the flow of raw materials.”
“It will unleash a scramble for the critical inputs we require in order to make a safe and effective vaccine.”
“Entities with little or no experience in manufacturing vaccines are likely to chase the very raw materials we require to scale our production, putting the safety and security of all at risk.”
Read 4 tweets
Nov 23, 2020
This @WSJ Editorial Board piece, which has the jingoism of Rudyard Kipling's writings, deserves a fuller response. But in this thread I'm going to focus on one particular sentence in the opinion to help enlighten the thinking of our 'friends' at the @WSJ. on.wsj.com/2IZPlFC
That sentence is:

"It’s not clear developing countries even have the ability to manufacture large-scale, complex technologies like Moderna’s mRNA vaccine or Eli Lilly’s monoclonal antibody cocktail—let alone distribute them."
Putting aside the @WSJ's superiority complex, it's worth looking at some examples in the past where similar statements made by those in the western hemisphere about the scientific/technological abilities of countries in the global south have been proven wrong.
Read 13 tweets
Sep 30, 2020
Despite what the CEO of Celgene/BMS has said in this hearing, it's important to note that even though Natco will enter with a generic version of Revlimid in 2022 it will be a very restricted amount.
The settlement between Natco/Celgene prevents Natco from fully coming to market until 2026. Other generics are still in litigation with Celgene BMS because of all the "important patent innovations" that Celegene piled up.
One of those "important innovations" is a patent on the crystalline form of lenalidomide which expires in 2027. A graduate student in organic chemistry would know how to get a crystalline form of a compound because it's just so obvious.
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(