This article examines eight reasons why the life sciences industry should employ international arbitration as its default dispute resolution mechanism for cross-border commercial contracts and disputes.

Background

The life sciences industry is one of the most significant sectors of the global economy, and as the pharmaceutical subsector alone demonstrates, the industry routinely engages in significant cross-border economic activity. For instance, the United States now imports over twice as many pharmaceutical products as it exports. China manufactures most of the world's active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), and India imports a significant portion of that API to make finished pharmaceutical products that India then exports around the world. Indeed, as the early days of the pandemic showed, limitations on the ability to manufacture API in China spawned export restrictions in India, which raised concerns that the United States and other countries would face antibiotic and acetaminophen shortages.

The COVID-19 crisis has also highlighted another trend that has been occurring in the life sciences industry for years—namely, long-term collaborations between companies from different countries. Three of the COVID-19 vaccines that are available in the United States and Western Europe at the time of writing this article were either developed through collaborations between companies from different countries, or are otherwise dependent upon such collaborations for manufacturing and distribution, and a fourth also resulted from development and manufacturing collaborations. Consequently, the COVID-19 crisis has starkly reinforced that the life sciences industry relies heavily on cross-border cooperation, particularly through long-term collaboration arrangements.