European Court Rules Against Patent Protection for Use of Human Embryonic Stem Cells in Scientific Research
London, UK, October 21, 2011 / B3C newswire / - Since April, a decision from the European Court of Justice has been pending over moves to ban patent protection for embryonic stem cell lines. Yesterday, the court’s decision ruled in favour of this ban, sparking an outcry from the scientific community.
Dr David C Hay, Principal Investigator within the Pluripotent Stem Cell Hepatocyte Development at the University of Edinburgh gave us his comments:
“The European Court of Justice has ruled that any invention based on human embryonic stem cells is unethical and therefore cannot be patented. The ruling will have major implications for the commercialisation of stem cell based technologies in the EU and worryingly, create the idea that stem cell research is immoral. This will undoubtedly have a negative impact on the clinical translation of the basic and world leading research carried out in Europe and delay the delivery of cutting edge treatments to the patient.”
David joins a program of 16 leading scientific speakers from the pharmaceutical and academic stem cell community at the 2nd Stem Cells for Drug Developers meeting in Berlin, December 6th-8th who will discuss and debate the challenges associated with using stem cells as tools in drug development and how will this new decision will affect future research & development.
A snapshot of some of the companies presenting include Novartis, Roche, California Stem Cell, AstraZeneca, SC4SM, European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, GSK and University of Edinburgh. You can view the speaker line up and meeting agenda on our website at www.stemcells-drugdevelopment.com and join in on the discussion.
“Nicely balanced cross sections of the current state of stem cell applications” Pfizer
“This was a great event to gain insight into the broad approaches of stem cells in the drug discovery space” Beckman Coulter
Reserve your place now and exchange ideas with leaders from the world’s most forward thinking drug developers and academics.
Register before Friday 4th November and save up to €200.
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