April 13 | Data access and interoperability

Delighted to join Professor Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid and the participants of “Competition Law in the Digital Era” in Israel virtually from Chicago.

Data access and interoperability are hot button competition issues around the world. Politics, industrial policy, and history powerfully inform the approaches taken by European Union, China, and the US. I spoke about balanced rules for access to big data in the context of healthcare data and three lessons that Israel and the US can learn from pharmaceutical antitrust.

We had a lively and wide-ranging Q&A session, and I enjoyed listening as the topics provoked discussion among the participants, including on the state of healthcare data portability in Israel. One participant asked me if I was optimistic about cross-border data portability. I replied that geopolitical trust is key, and the current climate will pressure governments to look inwards. However, even within each national system of laws, there are lessons to learn, even between seemingly different areas, such as access to healthcare data and biologics samples. Countries that succeed can offer models for like-minded partners to study and form a nucleus for dialogue and cooperation.