Pharmaceutical Regulation and Intellectual Property: the Third Side of the Triangle

Abstract

This paper seeks to determine the interactions between industry-specific regulation law and patent law in the case of the pharmaceutical industry. It thus attempts to close the third side of the triangle formed by the vertices of antitrust, regulation and intellectual property. For a lack of academic references on the subject , this paper is obviously highly exploratory, raising more questions than it answers. The first section of the chapter contains an overview of the intersection between the three areas of law and a discussion of the differences and similarities between regulation and intellectual property law. The second section studies the previously neglected side of the triangle in the case of the pharmaceutical industry. The third section concludes with considerations on the application of antitrust law in the regulated, R&D-intensive pharmaceuticals industry.