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The world's intellectual property system is broken. It's stopping lifesaving technologies from reaching the people who need them most in developed and developing countries, according to the authors of a report released in Ottawa by an international coalition of experts.

"We found the same stumbling blocks in the traditional communities of Brazil as we did in the boardroom of a corporation that holds the patent to a gene that can determine the chance a woman will develop breast cancer," said Richard Gold, professor of intellectual property at McGill University and chair of the International Expert Group that produced the report. "Most striking is that no matter where we looked, the lack of trust played a vital role in blocking negotiations that could have benefited both sides, as well as the larger public."

The report is the result of seven years of work by Gold and his colleagues, experts in law, ethics and economics Gold said that the authors based their report on revelations that came out of discussions with policy-makers, industry representatives, scientists and academics from around the world, as well as the outcomes of a series of case studies involving Brazil, Canada, Kenya the United States, the European Union, Japan, Australia, and India. The authors portray a crucially important but increasingly dysfunctional industry that relies on a business model based on outdated conceptions of IP. In their report, the authors describe conclusions and recommendations based on data collected over the last seven years; the data itself will be released at an October 14 event in Washington, DC.

"The old IP approach of the biotechnology community has failed to deliver on its potential to address disease and hunger in both developing and industrialised nations. We need to do better, and the IT world has shown us part of the solution," Gold says. "Look at the way that change has swept through the IT world and brought benefits to millions."

While biotech's potential seems unlimited, so do its problems. The report finds that a fixation on patents and privately-controlled research has frequently given rise to controversy and roadblocks to innovation. Recent examples include: the $612 million patent suit that almost shut down the world's Blackberries; Myriad Genetics' inability to introduce its breast cancer screening test in Canada and Europe; a pharmaceutical industry with an increasingly bare medicine cabinet; an ongoing failure to deliver life-saving medications to developing countries.

"For better or for worse, biotechnology is at the heart of current debates about health care, the environment, food and development," Gold said. "It offers the promise of producing plants to resist drought and nourish the world's poor, and to offer new medicines and energy sources. Biotech is at the heart of not only today's economy but its security and well-being as well."

The current crisis in biotechnology has given rise not only to economic problems but to endemic mistrust among its actors that is stifling innovation and preventing cutting-edge technologies from helping those who can most benefit. The report and case studies provide the following as illustrations:

• Findings from a study of stem cell researchers suggesting that those who patent the most, collaborate the least, based on a study of measures of success.
  
  
• The reasons for the breakdown of negotiations between a US company, which had patented human genes for breast and ovarian cancer, and Canadian health authorities. A case study reveals that talks with Canada were in crisis after Myriad delivered threatening letters to the Ontario Minister of Health from US Senator Orin Hatch and from the US Ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci.
  
  
• Evidence based on a Brazilian case study that ensuring property rights to indigenous practices and knowledge has served as a significant barrier to research in Brazil and has not furthered the interests of the country's traditional communities.
  
  
• Revelations from participants in discussions of Canada's legislation to allow emerging markets to produce drugs for poor countries - known as the Access to Medicines Regime. They said privately that they knew the regime would not work by the end of the negotiations, yet they publicly applauded it.