Global Health Technologies Transforming Intellectual Property Law and World Trade

The nano-enabled technology of 3D printing for medical devices presents a dynamic new avenue for meeting patient needs. 3D-printers can generate food, soaps, cosmetics, body parts, metal devices, or medicines. This technology enables continuity of health care delivery despite disruptive breaks in any supply chain due to war, shortage or broken lines of distribution due to pandemic force majeure. Featuring custom tailored attributes for each device, economic efficiency by eliminating transport costs during emergencies, avoiding issues of distribution supply chains and offering biocompatibility, 3D printed medical devices during the Covid-19 pandemic offered a very attractive alternative to enduring medical supply shortages worldwide. Beyond the covid-19 pandemic exigencies, 3D printed medical devices promise custom tailored meals to meet medical needs that are unique for each patient’s metabolism and a wide variety of tools for patient care that will change the shape of global commerce . 3D printing offers the alluring promise of biocompatible medical devices, matching any patient’s unique anatomy, by using a specific patient’s imaging data or by using a standard design to make multiple identical copies of the same device, but without delays for transport or shipping and insurance costs. The global health impact of these efforts, from the standpoint of patient safety and overall deterrence of unnecessary or unsafe medical practices remains unclear due to the dearth of regulation and monitoring. Furthermore, the reality that commerce can reduce or eliminate transport costs and storage costs associated with shipping can change international trade. Yet, 3D printing simultaneously offers great promise to meet challenges arising from the arcane role of intellectual property rights (IPR) in shaping the creation and transfer of nanomedicines and nanotechnologies to attain health equity and meet universal needs of health for all. These millennial technological changes may permanently alter how civil society does business for global health.