IPO Education Foundation 2020 Executive of the Year Ken Frazier

At Merck, we do a form of innovation that's extremely risky and hard. It's called invention. I'm proud of the work we do and the purpose we serve in the world. Throughout our company's history, we've tackled some of the biggest health challenges facing humanity and have provided hope in the fight against disease for both people and animals. It is our responsibility to ensure our future is as promising as our past and present, because society is counting on us.

Thank you, Manny, for your kind introduction, and to the Intellectual Property Owners Association and the Educational Foundation, thank you for this award. And thank you, Roger, Jennifer, and Bill, for your kind words. I'm honored to accept this award on behalf of tens of thousands of my colleagues around the world, and especially the inventors at Merck who generate the innovations, and to our intellectual property lawyers who obtain the patents that protect them. The Education Fund and Intellectual Property Owners have undertaken important work to improve the IP profession, but we need even more of this as we move forward. Events this year have spotlighted three important problems facing society: the economic downturn weighing heavily on the global population, the ability of diverse individuals from minority groups to fully participate in society, and the need for adequate preparation and an effective response to pandemic diseases. These problems have implications for intellectual property rights and the IP profession itself. While there recently has been greater recognition of diverse innovators, going back to Lewis Latimer, Elijah McCoy, and Hedy Lamarr, to more contemporary ones like Lonnie Johnson and Marian Croak, the R&D groups at many innovative companies remain disproportionately male and white. The IP profession reflects the importance of diversity among industry peers. Well, I applaud IPO and the Educational Foundation for their programs promoting diversity, such as the Gender Diversity and Innovation Toolkit, the Stroke of Genius podcast episode 'The Right to Invent,' and the Practical Guide to Diversity and Inclusion in the Legal Profession. The Foundation's website has fascinating vignettes on diverse inventors on its Innovator Spotlight. I highly recommend reviewing these materials and listening to the 'Right to Invent' podcasts. These programs foster increased participation in the innovation ecosystem by diverse individuals and inspire future innovators to pursue their dreams. But the fact of the matter is, we can and must do more. Protecting intellectual property remains critical for innovation and investments for future research and development. However, IP rights are under pressure both in the U.S. and throughout the rest of the world. I have actively spoken out about the need for governments and the pharmaceutical industry to work together to address patient access and medical disparities. We must come together to find solutions to fix the structural issues in our global health care systems that prevent our medicines from reaching and equitably treating all patients. The most effective way to ensure these drugs reach the global population is to establish a process by which countries can establish their own judicial or administrative procedures for the early adjudication of patent rights in a medicine prior to market entry. Merck recognizes society's interest in achieving a proper balance between supporting the world-renowned innovators and funding their extensive research and development of new drugs, while fostering the existence of a healthy generic drug industry. Weakening IP rights will lessen innovation incentives and investments for research and development of preventative and therapeutic interventions for unmet medical challenges. Current events underscore the need for innovation to combat novel viruses. As a home to many brilliant innovators, Merck depends on the protection of its intellectual property in order to further research and investment in the costly and risky drug discovery process. Intellectual property protection is necessary for technological progress. At Merck, we do a form of innovation that's extremely rare and risky. It's called invention. Innovation in biopharmaceuticals over the past 50 years has increased survival and improved the quality of life for countless patients suffering from heart disease caused by high cholesterol or hypertension, or those wracked by infectious diseases such as HIV and HCV. More recently, an entirely new paradigm for treating cancer, which unleashes the body's immune system to attack tumors, has emerged, and Merck was proud to be honored with the Foundation's Inventor of the Year Award in 2016 for Keytruda. I note that the Foundation honored several of our industry colleagues for the invention of their immuno-oncology drugs as well. I don't need to tell this audience that the investment and infrastructure necessary to support the discovery and development of these treatments would not have been possible without effective patent protection. Merck has a proven track record of tackling some of the biggest health challenges facing the global population. Today, Merck and many biopharma companies have prioritized work on therapeutics to treat COVID-19 and vaccines to help prevent it. I believe that IP rights have facilitated those collaborations and are contributing to the pursuit of a treatment or possible cure. It is our responsibility to ensure our future is promising, because society is counting on us. The Educational Foundation and IPO serve important roles, and you have a unique voice representing a broad coalition of IP owners. Although your members may not align completely on every issue or agree with all approaches to improve the IP system, when you do, it sends a powerful message to legislators and courts. There is one IP system for all innovation. We do not have one system for biopharma, one system for energy, one system for consumer goods, or one for electronics. IP protection provides a foundation for biopharmaceutical companies to invest in the discovery engine and the clinical development infrastructure necessary to translate critical life-saving inventions into products that can help millions of people every day. Serious unmet medical needs still remain, however, and the best hope for fulfilling those needs will be to make sure our scientists, medical research professionals, and legal counsel maintain the healthy process of scientific discovery and effective intellectual property protection. When policymakers and courts are grappling with novel issues and the path forward is, let's say, not obvious, your views are an influential contribution to the debate. I urge you to continue your efforts to increase diversity and inclusion in your ecosystem among both inventors and IP professionals. I also urge you to continue promoting policies for effective IP protection that provides the critical incentive to invest in innovative R&D. I wish you great success and thank you again for this honor.