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KEEPING PENICILLIN IN THE BODY
542 would. not be useful. No second seminal specimen was examined and no postcoital examination made. A year later full examination showed the wife’s uterus to be hypoplastic ; she was treated with oestrogens and progesterone, and became
Special
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MEDICINE AND THE LAW
pregnant.
Patent Law Reform INVENTIONS relating to foods and medicines are only partly the concern of the memorandum on patent law reform lately addressed to the Board of Trade by the Joint Chemical Committee. That committee consists of representatives of British chemical manufacturers (including ICI, the Distillers Company and Courtaulds), the Biochemical and the Chemical Societies, the British Association of Chemists, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the Society of Chemical Industry, and the Wholesale Drug Trade Association. They agree to leave patents Such examples could be multiplied. Evidently for foods and medicines to be dealt with as at present modern methods of investigation and treatment are not provided by section 38A (3) of the Patents and Designs yet widely studied or applied, even in hospitals. The Act, so that the Comptroller will continue to exercise his power of licensing the use of a patent and will thus work of the committee on human fertility of the RCO.G, the biological and medical committee of the Royal supervise compulsory working. As to the improvement the general law the committee wants to see a reduction Commission on Population and the central laboratory of of the number of invalid patents granted (an invalid which the Family Planning Association hopes to set up in patent wielded by wealthy concerns has its own " nuisLondon should do much to promote a rise in standards. ance value ") and to see the Patent Office standard of validity harmonised with that which the law courts KEEPING PENICILLIN IN THE BODY apply. The committee also wants a new tribunal for THE systemic use of penicillin is still handicapped by litigants. In place of the High Court and the Patents the speed with which it is excreted in the urine. A conAppeal Tribunal they advocate a special Patents Division of the High Court, consisting of three judges tinuous intramuscular or intravenous drip, or frequent who have had experience of patent practice, with one injections, must be given to maintain a bacteriostatic or two persons selected from a panel of technically and fluids. In the level in the body early days, when every scientifically laymen. It is an ambitious unit was precious, the excreted urine was sometimes proposal whichqualified the lawyers may be expected to fight. recovered and used again, but the yield was variable and To return to food and medicine, the main contribution of the memo is in the dissenting views of Mr. G.-H. recovery was a laborious process 1 Unless this is done there is a huge but unavoidable waste of material. A Frazer, who speaks for the Pharmaceutical Research He thinks the pooling partial remedy has been put forward by Beyer, Woodward Corporation of Great Britain. of patents, backed by a cartel agreement, enables the and their colleagues.2 They have shown that if p-aminopower of the law to enforce the power of the purse so hippuric acid is given to dogs intravenously, so as to that absolute monopoly is attained " however gross the maintain a plasma concentration of 30-50 mg. per 100 of the public.". He does not rule out exploitation c.cm., the excretion of penicillin is definitely delayed. without them, he says, the arrangements; pooling Thus when 10,000 Oxford units of penicillin were injected production of penicillin here and in the United States intravenously into normal dogs, 60-98% of the amount might have been impossible. But they ought not to injected was recovered from the urine in two hours ; keep newcomers out of the field or compel firms already when the same amount was given to a dog receiving engaged in the industry to adopt excessive price schedules restrict output. In the pharmaceutical was recovered acid, only 30-37 % .p-aminohippuric during or deliberately the British affiliates of leading he observes, industry, two hours, and the blood level of the penicillin was German chemical firms did not in fact manufacture any and made more raised The persistent. correspondingly products here, although their agreements with their p-aminohippuric acid is said to be remarkably non-toxic, parent companies permitted it ; they acted as agents for the intravenous dose killing half the mice (LD 50) being the sale of German goods while neither British nor 5’3 g. per kg. Beyer and his colleagues believe that German concerns would grant licences to British penicillin is selectively excreted by the cells of the renal manufacturers seeking to start manufacture here. There was the remedy under section 38A on paper, tubule into the lumen of the urinary tubes, and that but British companies were the less anxious to spend interference limits this the acid cells. by p-aminohippuric money on protracted litigation with powerful rivals of the tubules. Whatever the theoretical explanation it because of their impression that the courts were reluctant sounds as though p-aminohippuric acid as an adjuvant to grant compulsory licences, even where there seemed of penicillin is worthy of clinical trial, to see whether the to be a cast-iron case of abuse of monopoly. Mr. Frazer rate of excretion in man is depressed as much as it was in does not object to the covering of alternative processes these experiments with dogs. even when it is not intended to work them. But the interests of scientific progress, he considers, demand that the original discoverer of a new substance should A CONFERENCE on the establishment of a world have his protection limited to the receipt of a reasonable standard for penicillin opened at the Royal Society, and should not be able to use his string of on Sir Oct. with 16, Burlington House, Henry Dale, royalty unworked largely patents in alternative processes to OM, PRS, in the chair. The delegates represent Australia, Canada, France, Great Britain and the United stop everyone else from using any of those processes at States, and observers have been sent by India, South all.It has been suggested that restrictions on the scope of Africa and other countries. The British delegates are a patentee’s monopoly would cause inventions to be Mr. C. R. Harington, FBS, and Dr. J. W. Trevan. kept secret and not protected. Mr. Frazer thinks little Dr. R. J. ROWLETTE, King’s professor of materia of this as regards new chemical substances. Chemical medica and pharmacy at Trinity College, Dublin, analysis can soon discover the composition of the lately president of the Royal College of Physicians of compound, and the research staffs maintained by all Ireland, and representative of the University of Dublin big chemical manufacturers would soon penetrate the in the Senate of Eire, died on Oct. 14, two days before secret and devise a process for subsequent manufacture. his seventy-first birthday. To sum up, he thinks that section 38A has helped the Dr. JANET VAUGHAN has been appointed a member of pharmaceutical chemical industry inasmuch as the the Royal Commission on equal pay. prospect of its being invoked has induced manufacturers to grant licences by mutual agreement. Voluntary 1. See Florey, M. E. Brit. med. Bull. 1944, 2, 11. licensing of patents is beneficial enough so long as the 2. Beyer, K. H., Woodward, R., Peters, L., Verwey, W. F. and parties do not forget that the public also is concerned. Mattis, P. A. Science, 1944, 100, 107. A couple married for 2 years consulted their private doctor. The wife received an ordinary pelvic examination. The husband’s semen, collected with faulty technique, was reported to contain no motile sperm, and on the strength of this he was given a course of injections of gonadotropins. Three months afterwards a second examination of sperm collected by a better method showed a more satisfactory result, but he was told he still needed a further course of expensive treatment. Actually in this couple the causes of sterility proved to lie mainly with the wife.
’
Articles
.
,
Special
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MEDICINE AND THE LAW
pregnant.
Patent Law Reform INVENTIONS relating to foods and medicines are only partly the concern of the memorandum on patent law reform lately addressed to the Board of Trade by the Joint Chemical Committee. That committee consists of representatives of British chemical manufacturers (including ICI, the Distillers Company and Courtaulds), the Biochemical and the Chemical Societies, the British Association of Chemists, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the Society of Chemical Industry, and the Wholesale Drug Trade Association. They agree to leave patents Such examples could be multiplied. Evidently for foods and medicines to be dealt with as at present modern methods of investigation and treatment are not provided by section 38A (3) of the Patents and Designs yet widely studied or applied, even in hospitals. The Act, so that the Comptroller will continue to exercise his power of licensing the use of a patent and will thus work of the committee on human fertility of the RCO.G, the biological and medical committee of the Royal supervise compulsory working. As to the improvement the general law the committee wants to see a reduction Commission on Population and the central laboratory of of the number of invalid patents granted (an invalid which the Family Planning Association hopes to set up in patent wielded by wealthy concerns has its own " nuisLondon should do much to promote a rise in standards. ance value ") and to see the Patent Office standard of validity harmonised with that which the law courts KEEPING PENICILLIN IN THE BODY apply. The committee also wants a new tribunal for THE systemic use of penicillin is still handicapped by litigants. In place of the High Court and the Patents the speed with which it is excreted in the urine. A conAppeal Tribunal they advocate a special Patents Division of the High Court, consisting of three judges tinuous intramuscular or intravenous drip, or frequent who have had experience of patent practice, with one injections, must be given to maintain a bacteriostatic or two persons selected from a panel of technically and fluids. In the level in the body early days, when every scientifically laymen. It is an ambitious unit was precious, the excreted urine was sometimes proposal whichqualified the lawyers may be expected to fight. recovered and used again, but the yield was variable and To return to food and medicine, the main contribution of the memo is in the dissenting views of Mr. G.-H. recovery was a laborious process 1 Unless this is done there is a huge but unavoidable waste of material. A Frazer, who speaks for the Pharmaceutical Research He thinks the pooling partial remedy has been put forward by Beyer, Woodward Corporation of Great Britain. of patents, backed by a cartel agreement, enables the and their colleagues.2 They have shown that if p-aminopower of the law to enforce the power of the purse so hippuric acid is given to dogs intravenously, so as to that absolute monopoly is attained " however gross the maintain a plasma concentration of 30-50 mg. per 100 of the public.". He does not rule out exploitation c.cm., the excretion of penicillin is definitely delayed. without them, he says, the arrangements; pooling Thus when 10,000 Oxford units of penicillin were injected production of penicillin here and in the United States intravenously into normal dogs, 60-98% of the amount might have been impossible. But they ought not to injected was recovered from the urine in two hours ; keep newcomers out of the field or compel firms already when the same amount was given to a dog receiving engaged in the industry to adopt excessive price schedules restrict output. In the pharmaceutical was recovered acid, only 30-37 % .p-aminohippuric during or deliberately the British affiliates of leading he observes, industry, two hours, and the blood level of the penicillin was German chemical firms did not in fact manufacture any and made more raised The persistent. correspondingly products here, although their agreements with their p-aminohippuric acid is said to be remarkably non-toxic, parent companies permitted it ; they acted as agents for the intravenous dose killing half the mice (LD 50) being the sale of German goods while neither British nor 5’3 g. per kg. Beyer and his colleagues believe that German concerns would grant licences to British penicillin is selectively excreted by the cells of the renal manufacturers seeking to start manufacture here. There was the remedy under section 38A on paper, tubule into the lumen of the urinary tubes, and that but British companies were the less anxious to spend interference limits this the acid cells. by p-aminohippuric money on protracted litigation with powerful rivals of the tubules. Whatever the theoretical explanation it because of their impression that the courts were reluctant sounds as though p-aminohippuric acid as an adjuvant to grant compulsory licences, even where there seemed of penicillin is worthy of clinical trial, to see whether the to be a cast-iron case of abuse of monopoly. Mr. Frazer rate of excretion in man is depressed as much as it was in does not object to the covering of alternative processes these experiments with dogs. even when it is not intended to work them. But the interests of scientific progress, he considers, demand that the original discoverer of a new substance should A CONFERENCE on the establishment of a world have his protection limited to the receipt of a reasonable standard for penicillin opened at the Royal Society, and should not be able to use his string of on Sir Oct. with 16, Burlington House, Henry Dale, royalty unworked largely patents in alternative processes to OM, PRS, in the chair. The delegates represent Australia, Canada, France, Great Britain and the United stop everyone else from using any of those processes at States, and observers have been sent by India, South all.It has been suggested that restrictions on the scope of Africa and other countries. The British delegates are a patentee’s monopoly would cause inventions to be Mr. C. R. Harington, FBS, and Dr. J. W. Trevan. kept secret and not protected. Mr. Frazer thinks little Dr. R. J. ROWLETTE, King’s professor of materia of this as regards new chemical substances. Chemical medica and pharmacy at Trinity College, Dublin, analysis can soon discover the composition of the lately president of the Royal College of Physicians of compound, and the research staffs maintained by all Ireland, and representative of the University of Dublin big chemical manufacturers would soon penetrate the in the Senate of Eire, died on Oct. 14, two days before secret and devise a process for subsequent manufacture. his seventy-first birthday. To sum up, he thinks that section 38A has helped the Dr. JANET VAUGHAN has been appointed a member of pharmaceutical chemical industry inasmuch as the the Royal Commission on equal pay. prospect of its being invoked has induced manufacturers to grant licences by mutual agreement. Voluntary 1. See Florey, M. E. Brit. med. Bull. 1944, 2, 11. licensing of patents is beneficial enough so long as the 2. Beyer, K. H., Woodward, R., Peters, L., Verwey, W. F. and parties do not forget that the public also is concerned. Mattis, P. A. Science, 1944, 100, 107. A couple married for 2 years consulted their private doctor. The wife received an ordinary pelvic examination. The husband’s semen, collected with faulty technique, was reported to contain no motile sperm, and on the strength of this he was given a course of injections of gonadotropins. Three months afterwards a second examination of sperm collected by a better method showed a more satisfactory result, but he was told he still needed a further course of expensive treatment. Actually in this couple the causes of sterility proved to lie mainly with the wife.
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Articles
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