AI Drug Discovery East Africa: Ownership and Access
AlphaFold 3 is a useful starting point, not a shortcut to a medicine
AlphaFold 3 has become a
powerful symbol of AI assisted science. The 2024 Nature paper describing the
system reports that it can predict joint structures involving proteins, nucleic
acids, small molecules, ions and modified residues, with major improvements for
several kinds of biomolecular interaction. That can help researchers understand
how potential therapeutic molecules may interact with biological targets. It
does not mean that an AI system can produce a market ready medicine simply by
predicting a structure.
For East African business law,
that distinction is essential. A useful AI output can sit at the beginning of a
long chain that includes laboratory work, candidate selection, preclinical
research, clinical evidence, manufacturing, patent strategy, licensing and
regulatory approval. The legal question is therefore wider than “who owns what
the AI discovered?” It is who owns each legally relevant layer, who is entitled
to commercialise it, what evidence is required before patients can receive it,
and whether access conditions were built into the research relationship early
enough to matter.
The AI provider does not automatically own the medicine
A company that provides an AI
model may own or license the software, model weights, interface, confidential
know how and contractual rights governing use. None of that automatically makes
it the owner of every molecule, formulation or therapeutic use identified by a
research team. Patent ownership is determined through inventorship, employment
rules, assignments, collaboration agreements and the law governing the
particular invention. Data licences and material transfer agreements can add
further rights and restrictions.
That means a research
partnership should separate at least four questions that are often collapsed
into the word “ownership.” Who may use the AI system? Who owns pre existing
data, code and biological materials? Who owns new patentable inventions and know
how produced during the project? Who receives rights to develop, manufacture,
license or sell the resulting medicine? If those questions are left to a
general clause saying that each party retains “its intellectual property,” a
successful discovery can expose ambiguity at precisely the moment when
investors and regulators require certainty.
East African patent law still starts with human inventors
Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and
Uganda are contracting states under the ARIPO Harare Protocol, which provides a
regional filing route for patents in designated states. The current ARIPO
system requires patent applications to identify the invention through a description,
claims and other formal materials and applies the familiar standards of
novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability. It does not create a
special owner for inventions generated with artificial intelligence.
National law reinforces the
human centred starting point. Kenya’s Industrial Property Act states that the
right to a patent belongs to the inventor, subject to assignment and other
rules. Uganda’s Industrial Property Act defines an inventor as the person who
actually devises the invention, gives the right to a patent to the inventor and
contains rules for inventions made in employment or commission. WIPO’s current
AI and IP materials similarly distinguish human created inventions, which can
be protected through existing frameworks if they qualify, from machine created
inventions, where international debate continues. For an East African research
company, the safer assumption is therefore not that “the AI owns it” or “the
user owns it,” but that the project must identify the human inventive
contribution and then trace ownership from those inventors through employment,
assignment and collaboration arrangements.
A patent and a medicine approval answer different questions
A patent can prevent
unauthorised commercial exploitation of an invention for a limited period. It
does not certify that the product is safe, effective or of appropriate quality
for patients. A company may hold a strong patent and still be unable to market
the medicine. It may also develop a medicine that can be lawfully supplied even
where no patent is obtained, provided regulatory requirements are met.
The East African Community
Medicines Regulatory Harmonization programme has developed common guidelines
and joint assessment procedures intended to reduce duplication in medicine
evaluation. The EAC publishes guidelines for registration of pharmaceutical
products, vaccines, biotherapeutics, variations and abridged assessment. The
regional process supports scientific review, but national regulatory authority
remains central to market authorisation and local oversight. WHO’s Good
Reliance Practices likewise encourage regulators to use trusted assessments
efficiently while retaining national responsibilities such as vigilance, market
surveillance and oversight of local manufacturing and distribution. An AI
generated prediction therefore has evidential value only to the extent that it
contributes to the scientifically required development record. It does not
bypass the medicine regulator.
Public funding creates leverage only if the access terms are
written
The most important access
question often arises long before a patent is granted. An East African
university, public research institute or ministry may contribute laboratories,
clinical networks, public data, researchers or grant money to a discovery partnership.
If the agreement says nothing about affordable access, the fact that public
resources supported the work may not automatically produce a legal right to a
particular price or licence later. The exact result depends on the funding law,
contract and applicable patent rules.
That is why access obligations
are stronger when negotiated at the start. WHO’s 2024 briefing note on access
oriented technology licensing explains that licences can deal not only with
patents but also trade secrets, technical assistance and regulatory obligations,
and can be structured to promote wider access to resulting health products. In
an East African project, an access clause could address territorial licences,
non exclusive rights for specified markets, supply commitments, reasonable
pricing principles, technology transfer, local manufacturing, development
milestones or rights that activate if the commercial partner stops developing
the product. The correct package will depend on the project, but the principle
is simple: public value should not be left to an informal expectation when it
can be expressed as a contractual obligation.
Research agreements should anticipate the moment the AI
result becomes valuable
A well drafted AI drug
discovery agreement should decide how results move from research to
development. If one party identifies a candidate through a model and another
validates it in the laboratory, the agreement should state how inventorship
will be assessed and who controls patent filing. If a university researcher and
company scientist jointly contribute to the inventive concept, joint
inventorship may follow under applicable law even if one institution funded
most of the work. Ownership can then be allocated by employment rules or
assignment, but inventorship itself should not be rewritten merely for
commercial convenience.
The agreement should also
address confidentiality and publication. Academic institutions may need to
publish; a company may need time to file a patent before disclosure. Data used
to train or query the system may carry contractual, privacy, database, genetic
resource or research ethics restrictions. If biological samples or genetic
resources are involved, national access and benefit sharing requirements may
also matter. AI does not remove these older legal layers. It makes it easier
for several of them to converge in one project.
Access is easier to design before monopoly and sunk costs
harden
Once a candidate has passed
expensive development stages, the negotiating positions change. A company that
has financed trials, manufacturing scale up and regulatory submissions will
understandably seek to recover investment. A public institution that contributed
early science may then find that broad access requests conflict with an
exclusive licence signed years earlier. Emergency tools such as compulsory
licensing under national law and the flexibilities recognised by the WTO TRIPS
framework remain important, but they are not a substitute for thoughtful deal
design at the research stage.
East Africa can therefore
treat AI assisted medicine discovery as a contracting and governance
opportunity rather than waiting for a future patent dispute. Public funders can
require an access plan. Universities can create standard licensing principles for
health technologies. Companies can define foreground IP, inventorship
procedures, development milestones and commercial rights before major value is
created. Regulators can make clear that AI assisted evidence is welcome where
scientifically valid but does not lower standards of quality, safety and
efficacy.
The practical legal question is who controls the path to the
patient
The deepest mistake would be
to treat “the discovery” as one thing. An AI model may contribute to a
prediction; researchers may design and test a candidate; inventors may obtain
patent rights; a company may acquire those rights; a manufacturer may need know
how; regulators must assess the medicine; and health systems must still be able
to procure it. Ownership at one stage does not automatically control every
stage.
For East African businesses
and research institutions, the practical question is therefore not simply who
owns an AI discovered drug. It is who can lawfully move the candidate from
model output to patient access, under what rights, and with what obligations.
AlphaFold 3 shows why that question is no longer theoretical. The legal work
should begin when the research partnership is formed, because by the time a
medicine succeeds, the most important ownership and access choices may already
have been made.
Source
note. This article is based on Josh Abramson and others, “Accurate structure
prediction of biomolecular interactions with AlphaFold 3,” Nature (8 May 2024);
the East African Community Medicines Regulatory Harmonization programme and its
current medicines evaluation and registration guidelines; the World Health
Organization, Good Reliance Practices in the Regulation of Medical Products,
WHO Technical Report Series 1033, Annex 10 (2021), and Briefing Note on
Access-Oriented Technology Licensing (2024/2025); the ARIPO Harare Protocol on
Patents, Utility Models and Industrial Designs and ARIPO patent filing
guidance; Kenya’s Industrial Property Act; Uganda’s Industrial Property Act;
WIPO materials on AI, inventorship and intellectual property; and the WTO
framework on public health and intellectual property, including the TRIPS
Agreement and the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health.
Suggested citation:
Ronald Serwanga, “AI Drug Discovery East Africa: Ownership and Access” East Africa Legal Insight (5 September 2026).