Calibrated Tree Priors for Relaxed Phylogenetics and Divergence Time Estimation

The use of fossil evidence to calibrate divergence time estimation has a long history. More recently Bayesian MCMC has become the dominant method of divergence time estimation and fossil evidence has been re-interpreted as the specification of prior distributions on the divergence times of calibration nodes. These so-called "soft calibrations" have become widely used but the statistical properties of calibrated tree priors in a Bayesian setting has not been carefully investigated. Here we clarify that calibration densities, such as those defined in BEAST 1.5, do not represent the marginal prior distribution of the calibration node. We illustrate this with a number of analytical results on small trees. We also describe an alternative construction for a calibrated Yule prior on trees that allows direct specification of the marginal prior distribution of the calibrated divergence time, with or without the restriction of monophyly. This method requires the computation of the Yule prior conditional on the height of the divergence being calibrated. Unfortunately, a practical solution for multiple calibrations remains elusive. Our results suggest that direct estimation of the prior induced by specifying multiple calibration densities should be a prerequisite of any divergence time dating analysis

Patents v. Statutory Exclusivities in Biological Pharmaceuticals - Do We Really Need Both

Over the past decade or so, the United States has been the arena of a boisterous debate regarding the creation of a new regulatory framework for the approval of generic versions of biologics-based pharmaceutical products (also known as biological products and biologics )--an important and increasingly growing class of drugs. The basic purpose of such a framework is to create a fast and less-costly route to FDA approval for biologics that would be similar or identical to already-approved biological products--typically ones that are sold on the market at monopoly rates--thereby allowing cheaper versions of such medicines to enter the market. One of the main points of contention in creating the framework for the approval of generic biologics has been the length of the exclusivity period granted to developers of original biologics during which generic competitors are not allowed to enter the market. On March 21, 2010, as part of the healthcare reform act, Congress settled this debate by enacting the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 ( BPCIA ), which provides statutory exclusivity periods of 12 to 12.5 years for original biologics from the date of FDA approval. This 12- to 12.5-year statutory exclusivity period predominantly overlaps with patent protection on the underlying biological product and is about 5 to 11 months shorter than the average remaining period of such patent protection on the original product. This redundancy raises questions regarding the need for and purpose of having patents in inventions related to biologics in addition to statutory exclusivities. What justification is there, if any, for such double-layered protection in biologics? Assuming that such justification or need for double protection does exist, why should biologics be the only kind of technology to benefit from it? Could the statutory exclusivity regime in biologics mark the dawn of a new era in the protection and incentivizing of innovation and the beginning of a gradual replacement of the old patent system with modern schemes of statutory exclusivities; or is it just a peculiar case of a legal regime shaped by an unusually powerful industry? In this Article I will seek to address these questions and propose some answers. Part I of this Article will review fundamental patent theory concepts necessary for the discussion and compare them with statutory exclusivities, with emphasis on the statutory exclusivity scheme created under the Hatch-Waxman Act. Part II will describe the current regulation of biologics in the United States and review the framework for the approval of generic biologics under BPCIA. Comparing statutory exclusivities and patent protection in the context of biologics, Part III will discuss the merits of these two regimes from a public policy perspective, address the possible ramifications of having both statutory exclusivities and patent protection in biologics, and culminate in a call for the suspension of patent enforcement rights with relation to biological products that benefit from statutory exclusivities afforded under BPCIA for the duration of such exclusivities

Intellectual Property and Public Health – A White Paper

On October 26, 2012, the University of Akron School of Law’s Center for Intellectual Property and Technology hosted its Sixth Annual IP Scholars Forum. In attendance were thirteen legal scholars with expertise and an interest in IP and public health who met to discuss problems and potential solutions at the intersection of these fields. This report summarizes this discussion by describing the problems raised, areas of agreement and disagreement between the participants, suggestions and solutions made by participants and the subsequent evaluations of these suggestions and solutions. Led by the moderator, participants at the Forum focused generally on three broad questions. First, are there alternatives to either the patent system or specific patent doctrines that can provide or help provide sufficient incentives for health-related innovation? Second, is health information being used proprietarily and if so, is this type of protection appropriate? Third, does IP conflict with other non-IP values that are important in health and how does or can IP law help resolve these conflicts? This report addresses each of these questions in turn

The Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act 10--A Stocktaking

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA) as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”). The purpose of BPCIA was to create for biologics a regime similar to that of the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act (Hatch–Waxman Act) and, in so doing, to open biologics markets to competition and, subsequently, lower the price of these expensive and increasingly important pharmaceuticals. Using original data, this Essay takes stock of the decade that has passed since the enactment of BPCIA. This Essay surveys the state of competition in United States biologics markets, entry of follow-on biologics into these markets, and the effects such entry has had on biologics prices. This Essay’s main findings are that, as of March 23, 2020—exactly ten years since the signing of BPCIA into law—the FDA has approved a total of 26 follow-on biologics deemed biosimilar to 9 original products (ratio: 2.63 follow-on/original products), with only 16 of these deemed biosimilar to 7 original products (ratio: 1.78 follow- on/original products) actually available on the market. None of these follow-on products have been approved as interchangeable with their reference products, which means that substitution of the 7 original products with one of their 16 approved biosimilars cannot be done automatically. The price of these products was 10%–37% lower than the price of the original biologic, with the average price savings being 24% or 27%. All 35 approved follow-on and reference products are owned by a total of 11 pharmaceutical companies. The number of years of market exclusivity of the 9 original biologics before the approval of the first biosimilar ranged between 13.5–28.92 with an average of 18.27 years or 15.33–29.42 with an average of 19.87 years before the launch of the first competing biosimilar. This Essay further puts forward a new method of measuring comparative levels of competition in drug markets by comparing the ratio of total approved follow-on products per total approved original products at certain critical benchmarks. Using this measurement tool, this Essay compares BPCIA’s track record with the levels of competition in small-molecule drugs before and after the Hatch– Waxman Act, showing that that BPCIA significantly underperforms in comparison and fails to instigate levels of competition that would lead to significant price drops and increase access to biologics in the United States. A short survey of the most likely reasons for BPCIA’s underperformance follows. This Essay concludes by presenting the following question: if BPCIA’s current track record is (still) not enough to convince that it is failing to meet its goals, what more would it take to reach such a conclusion, and how much longer should policymakers wait before it is possible to surmise that BPCIA in its current form has failed to significantly increase access to biologics in the United States

How Many Subpopulations is Too Many? Exponential Lower Bounds for Inferring Population Histories

Reconstruction of population histories is a central problem in population genetics. Existing coalescent-based methods, like the seminal work of Li and Durbin (Nature, 2011), attempt to solve this problem using sequence data but have no rigorous guarantees. Determining the amount of data needed to correctly reconstruct population histories is a major challenge. Using a variety of tools from information theory, the theory of extremal polynomials, and approximation theory, we prove new sharp information-theoretic lower bounds on the problem of reconstructing population structure -- the history of multiple subpopulations that merge, split and change sizes over time. Our lower bounds are exponential in the number of subpopulations, even when reconstructing recent histories. We demonstrate the sharpness of our lower bounds by providing algorithms for distinguishing and learning population histories with matching dependence on the number of subpopulations. Along the way and of independent interest, we essentially determine the optimal number of samples needed to learn an exponential mixture distribution information-theoretically, proving the upper bound by analyzing natural (and efficient) algorithms for this problem.Comment: 38 pages, Appeared in RECOMB 201

Regulatory Competitive Shelters as Incentives for Innovation in Agrobiotech

This short paper is a summary of my presentation at the Michigan State Law Review 2014 Fall Symposium on “Public Domain(s): Law, Generating Knowledge, and Furthering Innovation in the Information Economy” held on October 3, 2014. The paper reviews the current role played by regulatory competitive shelters (RCSs; a.k.a. regulatory exclusivities) in the area of agrobiotech. The article also suggests that the Food and Drug Administration\u27s move to treat genetically modified animals as animal drugs under the Generic Animal Drug and Patent Term Restoration Act (GADPTRA) may result in the application of GADPTRA\u27s RCS regime to genetically modified animals and in a Hatch-Waxmanizing of the regulation of that agrobiotechnology

Assisted reproductive technology in the USA: is more regulation needed?

The regulation of assisted reproductive technologies is a contested area. Some jurisdictions, such as the UK and a number of Australian states, have comprehensive regulation of most aspects of assisted reproductive technologies; others, such as the USA, have taken a more piecemeal approach and rely on professional guidelines and the general regulation of medical practice to govern this area. It will be argued that such a laissez-faire approach is inadequate for regulating the complex area of assisted reproductive technologies. Two key examples, reducing multiple births and registers of donors and offspring, will be considered to illustrate the effects of the regulatory structure of assisted reproductive technologies in the USA on practice. It will be concluded that the regulatory structure in the USA fails to provide an adequate mechanism for ensuring the ethical and safe conduct of ART services, and that more comprehensive regulation is required