Eli Lilly and : IP Protections Must Ensure Progress and Certainty

We believe the greatest value - both to society and innovators - comes when our laws and our actions promote scientific progress and certainty. And we must preserve strong intellectual property protections to ensure that progress and market certainty.

Our intellectual property system was founded more than 200 years ago to promote scientific progress by rewarding disclosure of innovation with a period of exclusivity. Without the disclosure that our IP system promotes, the pace of innovation would slow to a crawl. Innovation would focus mostly on low-risk ventures, leaving large areas of unmet medical needs for patients.

We need to maintain current protections and make some changes to governing rules to preserve the incentive to develop treatments for some of our greatest health care challenges, such as Alzheimer's disease. Pharmaceutical advances won't come unless companies can count on protection of those discoveries.

How can we continue to ensure strong IP protections? Here are some suggestions from our CEO Dave Ricks, who recently spoke at The Atlantic's The State of Care: Innovation and Access event in D.C.:

.@SCClemons asks @LillyPad's Chairman and CEO David Ricks to provide a piece of advice on the patent process: We are looking for consistency and periods without interference #AtlanticStateofCarepic.twitter.com/DWdqx48nNt

To watch an entire livestream of the event, click here.