Progress in Reverse: Promoting Innovation in Biologics by Reviving the Reverse Doctrine of Equivalents

22 Wake Forest J. Bus. & Intell. Prop. L. 19

Medical innovations save lives. In 1955, New York scientist Jonas
Salk famously manipulated a deadly virus to invent the first polio
vaccine. Forty years later, scientists at the American pharmaceutical
firm Genentech created a way to treat patients with severe asthma by
modifying naturally occurring human immunoglobulin proteins. In the
early 2000s, scientists discovered a way to treat aggressive forms of
breast cancer by adding nonhuman protein sequences to human
antibodies. All three inventions represented an innovative leap forward
and significantly contributed to the body of scientific and technological
knowledge in the medical field. These inventions are also examples of
medical therapeutics known as biologics.