Regulating Bioprospecting: Institutions for Drug Research, Access, and Benefit Sharing Book

The search for useful biochemical compounds and genes in nature has been the focus of international negotiations for more than a decade, yet debate on the terms for access to genetic resources, traditional knowledge and benefit-sharing is far from settled. This book examines the optimal property rights structures and institutional mechanisms for regulating bioprospecting for drug research. Focusing on the economics of contracts, it shows that the rights exchanged are complementary at each stage of drug discovery and development of genetic resources. The author examines bioprospecting collaborations in several countries and critiques institutional and contractual factors that led to their success or failure. This is one of the first books to address the contractual complexities of bioprospecting for drug research and is thus a key text for policy makers, practitioners and scholars in the areas of law, economics, ethnobotany, anthropology, and environmental sciences.Read More