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Patent Protection for China's Genetic Engineering
China will introduce stricter patent rules to accelerate advances of genetic medical treatment, a patent official said recently.
Ma Zhaoruo, an official with the State Intellectual Property Office, said at a human genetic diagnosis and treatment symposium held in this capital of central China's Hunan Province that although the study of genetic engineering is at an initial stage, the clinical advances in techniques have shown the tendency of becoming the most important means in medical treatment.
In the next five years, China will accelerate the clinical experimentation of genetic therapy to industrialize the patented medical results.
China has dealt with over 190 patents related to genetic medical treatment submitted from the United States, Japan and some European countries.
Ma said that most of the patent applications are related to therapeutic methods rather than new genetic materials or genomes.
China's genetic engineering industry set off in the late 1980s, two decades later than some other countries. Insufficient financial support has also limited its progress.
China has given the genetic engineering priority to tackling key technical problems in genetic treatment, and has gained quite a few patents in the sector, according to sources at the symposium.
So far, the country has laid a good foundation in the genetic treatment of liver cancer and pre-senile dementia. The technology has been implemented in clinic treatment.
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