On 22nd September, Professor Aisling McMahon, Principal Investigator on the ERC PatentsInHumans project, was invited to speak at a workshop on “Biobanks: New Challenges and Prospects”. The all-day workshop was organised by Professor Florence Bellivier (University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, IRJS) and Dr Christine Noiville (CNRS–ISJPS) and explored a range of contemporary issues in the biobank context, including the interplay between intellectual property rights, data protection laws, and health research regulations on downstream innovation (and access to such innovation) in biobank contexts.
Professor Aisling McMahon was invited to deliver a talk (remotely) on “Biobanks and Intellectual Property Issues: Challenges and Prospects”. In her talk, she reflected on the role of intellectual property rights within biobank contexts, including how IPRs can arise over health-technologies developed following research using biobank samples, and who typically holds such IPRs. She discussed the importance of informed consent in the recruitment and donation of samples to biobanks, including the importance of informing users around how IPRs may arise over technologies developed, and how these may impact both the development of and downstream access to health-technologies. Her talk then discussed the important role that biobank’s IP policies can have in influencing downstream access to IP protected health-technologies (e.g. medicines) developed by researchers’ access biobank samples, and whose development was contributed to by knowledge gleaned from such biobank samples. She discussed the use of IP licensing clauses by biobanks, including march-in clauses, which enable biobanks to intervene by for example, being granted a license over the IP protected technologies in the event of a triggering situation arising, such as where IP is used in a manner that unreasonably restricts downstream access to technologies developed or contributed to by research on biobank samples. Finally, her talk reflected on the relationship between IP and recent developments which prioritise the sharing of data for future research, including the potential implications of IPRs for secondary use of data under the European Health Data Space (EHDS).
Prof McMahon has published a range of papers which examine intellectual property in biobank contexts, including a 2016 book chapter which examined the operation of IPRs in biobank contexts. In 2025, she published an article (with Dr Opeyemi Kolawole) which examined the bioethical implications of how patents can apply over technologies whose development have been contributed to by use of biobank samples, and policies biobanks can take to ameliorate potential tensions arising. She has also recently published a paper with Dr Ciara Staunton on the emerging EHDS, which included a consideration of the implications of IPRs for secondary use of data in this context.
You can find out more about the PatentsInHumans project on our website: www.patentsinhumans.eu and by watching this short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFVRHpzzuQM
The PatentsInHumans project is funded by the European Union (ERC, PatentsInHumans, Project No. 101042147). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.