Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) are one of the principal means through which companies, creators and inventors generate returns on their investment in research, innovation and creativity. IPRs are a crucial incentive for the development of new and innovative medicinal products, enabling the research and development necessary for the creation of many of today’s medicines and provide the incentive to encourage companies to continue to invest in the development of new treatments, medicinal products, and vaccines.

A well functioning intellectual property framework is key to providing companies that are researching and developing new medicinal products with the certainty that if a medicine makes it to the market, it can be protected, for a specific period time, from being copied or used by another party without the permission of the rightsholder.