European Regulation Against Stem Cell Patent

New European regulations of stem cells could have an impact on stem cell research in the future. On Thursday, European regulators made a new ruling. They ruled against allowing a specific patent that covered a topic about developing human embryonic stem cells. This is a change for the industry. If a company cannot get a patent protection for their products, then their may be less incentive to develop stem cell therapy research.

The patent that the European Patent Office rejected was a patent filed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation in 1995. James Thomson was the first person who was able to isolate embryonic stem cells way back in 1988. This patent had been held by the Wisconsin Foundation was challenged. This new development could lead some companies to not invest as much money in stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are controversial because they can destroy an embryo. The patent office has made this decision partly because of the controversial nature of embryonic stem cells.

Here is the statement from the European Patent Office.

Decisive in the EBoA ruling was the application's claim regarding human stem cell cultures. The EBoA decided that under the EPC it is not possible to grant a patent for an invention which necessarily involves the use and destruction of human embryos. The EBoA stressed, however, that its decision does not concern the general question of human stem cell patentability.