Viabilidade da implantação de indústrias nacionais de membranas de hemodiálise sob o aspecto da propriedade industrial

Abstract

Kidney failure is one of the main health problems faced by patients worldwide. In Brazil, for example, there are 148,000 patients who need to undergo hemodialysis procedures. Although hemodialysis is essential to the lives of this significant number of Brazilian citizens, the country is dependent on imported supplies, such as dialyzers, to perform this treatment. To reduce this dependence on imported products, it is necessary to establish national dialyzer industries. With the aim of evaluating the feasibility of creating these industries, this thesis carried out a feasibility analysis of the national manufacture of cartridges exclusively from the aspects of intellectual property and technological knowledge. This analysis was performed by examining 122 patents filed worldwide that describe the manufacturing process for hemodialysis membranes. None of the patents found were even filed in Brazil, which indicates that there is no legal impediment to reproducing the processes described therein. Furthermore, the texts of these patents present the industrial processes in sufficient detail to enable their reproduction. Thus, it was concluded that the implementation of national dialyzer industries is viable in terms of intellectual property aspects. However, it is also necessary to assess whether the process carried out in Brazil would be able to produce membranes at competitive prices, as well as assess the social and environmental impact and also its insertion in the Brazilian health system and innovation ecosystem.