Yes To ‘Vanda' : Gateway To Personalised Treatment Patent!

Personalised treatment with customised medical treatment is a fast growing area of health care. It opens up an innovative yet unexplored method of improved treatment with a promise to reduce cost by tailoring a patient's specific characteristics to a particular medical treatment. Though many attempts are being made to get a positive result on patent eligibility, the future of customised medicines still remains uncertain. But the recent decision of US Fed. Circuit in Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. West-Ward Pharmaceuticals, [887 F.3d 1117] in April, 2018, has given new lease of life to the question of patent eligibility of Personalised Medicine Treatment (PMT) and perhaps laid a foundation for grant of such patents. More so USPTO was quick to issued new guidelines for examination in June 2018 to implement this judicial ruling in such type of other patent applications in USPTO. In India the IPO is still looking West to keep method of treatment as non-eligible for patent