Regulating Bioprospecting

Biodiversity prospecting or 'bioprospecting' refers to the process of searching for potentially valuable genetic resources and biochemical compounds in nature. This issue has been the subject of international negotiations for more than a decade, and this publication examines property rights structures and institutional mechanisms for regulating bioprospecting for drug research, focusing on the contractual complexities involved. Issues discussed include: the structure of the drug industry for RandD; the international legal framework, including the legal provisions of the CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity) and the TRIPS Agreement; transaction costs and their impact on the market; defining an intellectual property right on traditional medicinal knowledge; and the scope of the right to regulate access.

Padmashree Gehl Sampath is a Researcher at the United Nations University Institute for New Technologies (UNU-INTECH) Maastricht, the Netherlands.