Hannes Snellman's Lawyers Launch a Book on Legal and Ethical Challenges of Personalised Medicine

Doctor of Laws and Counsel Juli Mansnérus and Associate Amanda Blick from our IP & Tech Team have together with Professor (Emeritus) Raimo Lahti edited a book on legal and ethical challenges arising from the paradigm of personalised medicine as regards data collection, sharing and use, informed consent, privacy and public trust, and the changing status of patients and social equality. Associate Liisa Vaaraniemi also contributed to the publication with a chapter on patent law.

In their book ‘Personalized Medicine: Legal and Ethical Challenges’, the authors discuss how, in the recent years, the Finnish legislative processes aiming at generating ‘innovation-friendly’ legislation for scientific research purposes and for integrating genomic research results into the clinical setting have been heavily challenged by rapid developments in the fields of technology and medicine. In particular, there is a need to pursue the right balance between scientific and commercial interests, public health, and individual rights. The authors' aim is to provide insights into the legislative processes surrounding personalised medicine with a special focus on the question of how the freedom of science, equitable access to healthcare, public health, and commercial issues can be balanced with individual rights in the manner prescribed by the EU Charter and the Council of Europe’s Oviedo Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine.

The open access book is available here.