The Philippines sees surge in life sciences innovation
06 October 2023
The Philippines is seeing a surge in the life sciences sector’s innovation, but the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) acknowledges the need to step up collaboration with important partners to overcome obstacles and hasten the creation of life-saving therapies and medical technology.
Alejandro Campaña, senior director at WIPO’s IP for Innovators Department, stated in his opening remarks at the Asian Regional Conference in Support of Accelerated Life Sciences Innovation that it “has been growing steadily.”
Since 2020, according to IPOPHL data, the number of patent applications in the pharmaceutical industry has increased by more than 4 percent yearly.
Campaña said that this significant development encourages other nations to emulate the Philippines’ initiatives, particularly with regard to its use of tools and different WIPO-developed best practices recommendations.
Encouragement of teamwork is one international best practice that Campaña mentioned. He said its significance was most apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic, when multisectoral collaboration efforts enabled the 10- to 15-year-long process of developing and launching vaccinations to be drastically sped up to only one and a half years. The data from WIPO’s patent applications, where almost a quarter claimed more than one inventor as patent holder, provided substantial evidence for this.
In line with Campaña’s assertion, IPOPHL’s Director General Rowel S. Barba stated that life science businesses, the government and medical and research institutions “worked around the clock to develop life-saving medicine and devices that would bring immediate relief to our people threatened by Covid-19.”
For its part, IPOPHL gathered technologies created by innovation partners from IPOPHL’s network of Innovation and Technology Support Offices throughout the Philippines at a time when shortages of various basic medical supplies peaked during Covid-19 in order to inform the public about substitute solutions that help fill market gaps.
- Excel V. Dyquiangco
