Year 2016

China’s Pharmaceutical Sector And The IP Puzzle

Despite impressive growth, the pharmaceutical sector in China still relies on generic drug production since the majority of domestic companies cannot compete with country-based foreign corporations. Currently, following WTO pressure to oblige China to comply with IP regulations, more and more patented drugs are entering the market. Unfortunately, in spite of a newly introduced IP friendly bill, a puzzling situation persists, writes Pietro Dionisio.

High-Level UN Initiative On Global Public Health Gap Holds Landmark Hearing

An initiative of the United Nations secretary general yesterday gathered what could be described as an assembly of many of the world’s best thinkers and practitioners on public health and intellectual property rights. Industry, activists, academics, international organisations, and possibly some governments poured out their views for nearly seven hours – at times coming to tears and tension – shepherded by an astute moderator, as they responded to the call to take a longstanding debate on medicines access and high prices to a breakthrough.

ICANN Marrakesh Meeting Reaches Milestone For IANA Transition

The Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) at its 55th meeting in Marrakesh today (10 March) passed a milestone resolution to ship a package of proposals by its stakeholder groups to the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to end the latter's role as an oversight body for the internet. If approved, ICANN will be the next manager of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which is a set of registries for domain names, IP addresses and protocol parameters essential for the functioning of the global internet.

WHO Welcomes UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel, Offers Suggestions

The World Health Organization has provided a list of suggestions to the United Nations Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines, highlighting WHO activities in this area and making suggestions on areas the WHO has not yet been able to complete. It also describes several new proposals by WHO, including a global “fair pricing forum,” a pooled health product R&D fund, and a global antibiotic research and development facility.

Governments Agree To ICANN Accountability Proposals, Giving Green Light For IANA Transition

Governments gathered at the 55th meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Marrakesh this week have agreed to not object to the final proposal on enhancing ICANN accountability. By the move, the governments cleared the way to allow a potential handover of the management of the central root zone of the domain name system and other core databases to ICANN from the United States Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).