The UK government has revealed plans to change national patent law to ensure that clinical trials do not count as a breach of existing drug patents. To obtain marketing approval, new drugs must be compared with medicines already on the market, but such comparison trials could infringe the patents of existing drugs. Under rules announced on 26 February, which are still subject to parliamentary approval, clinical trials will be exempt from these patent restrictions. Other countries, including the United States and Canada, already have such exemptions in place.
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