Due to a unique interplay of patent protection, regulatory exclusivity and trade secrets, the biopharmaceutical industry has so far been shielded from substantial generic competition. The introduction of biosimilars onto the market has not resulted in significant price reductions, and concerns regarding the substitution and interchangeability of original biologics with biosimilars persist. This seminar will discuss how the biologics production process distorts the trade-offs that traditionally guided both patent protection and regulatory exclusivities: disclosure as key condition for benefiting from the corresponding monopoly position.

The production of pharmaceutical drugs in China has a long history of supply from very different regions. Based on ethnographic investigations in different regions of China, this paper will provide examples of some of these drugs. It will trace how suppliers manage to exchange them across vast distances and against a background of complex ethnic relations. Finally, it will highlight the role played by indigenous fieldwork documents in the continuing struggle to provide reference works for the regulation and inventory of useful medicinal materials. It will therefore introduce Chinese naturalists as we encounter them in the historical archive.