RWS global research community collecting COVID-19 research for pharmaceutical companies

RWS has mobilized its global research community to find scientific information that might be beneficial to pharmaceutical companies working on COVID-19 vaccines or treatments. 

In an effort to make a contribution to the global search for medical solutions to the current pandemic, RWS launched an online study on Friday, 20 March to collect prior research on 10 areas that are relevant to COVID-19 research. 

"We have an enormously large and talented global pool of over 40,000 researchers in every technology area, including the life sciences. While our expert researchers normally focus on technical research related to patents and intellectual property, their skills transfer seamlessly to the medical world. We felt we could make a positive contribution by collecting as much relevant research from around the world, in nearly any language, and making that available to the medical researchers in the pharmaceutical companies working on a solution. Many of our researchers have master’s and PhD level educations in relevant areas and they are enthusiastic about doing their part to help," said Peter Vanderheyden, Chief Operating Officer, RWS IP Research. 

Professor Gwilym Roberts, Partner and Chair at Kilburn & Strode LLP, one of Europe’s leading firms of patent and trade mark attorneys, said: “Offering valuable pro-bono research can only help to support the wider research community develop a treatment or vaccine faster and opening up this research to the stakeholder community is a wonderful initiative.”

Sidsel Hauge, European Patent Attorney, CEO and Group Vice President of AWA Denmark, a leading intellectual property law firm with presence in Europe and Asia, said: “We believe this pro-bono RWS research project accessing the power of the global research crowd will deliver valuable scientific search material that will accelerate any efforts to develop a vaccine. We look forward to accessing the results from this research in a few weeks.” 

The information will be made available electronically and without charge, via the RWS AOP Connect platform. Less than a week into the five weeks study we have already received almost 3,500 documents from 173 researchers. Pharmaceutical companies who would like free and unlimited access to this information, to support their own R&D, can request access by registering at this link.

If you are a researcher within the pharmaceutical industry wishing to contribute to the study click this link.