Original news and analysis on international IP policy
At the last session of the World Trade Organization Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council, the Dominican Republic challenged an Australian draft law requiring plain packaging for tobacco products as being incompatible with its WTO obligations, eclipsing other agenda items. The TRIPS Council also addressed other regular agenda items such as related to biodiversity and public health, according to sources.
NEW YORK - The declaration from the United Nations High-Level Meeting on AIDS, which concluded today, set targets for responding to the disease and contained clear references to flexibilities to intellectual property law intended to assure needed medicines can be obtained affordably, according to Brazil's health minister.
Pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck will donate its entire library of natural products to the Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research along with a grant, the institute announced this week. The library, one of the world's largest, will be open for researchers around the world.
This week the United Nations meets in New York with the possibility of finding a way to end the HIV crisis that in the past two decades spread like wildfire and decimated societies in many developing countries, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) signed an agreement with pharmaceutical manufacturer Sanofi on 30 May for a three-year research project on nine neglected tropical diseases that will come with intellectual property rights on research results for both sides, according to a press release from the international organisation in Switzerland.
The European Commission has issued a new draft customs regulation that it says addresses past concerns over wrongful seizures of generic drug shipments transiting through European ports. But the new regulation does not substantively change existing rules, it said, and civil society groups say it does not go far enough. The EU regulation is the subject of a World Trade Organization dispute settlement case.
The World Health Organization Executive Board last week requested more details on the organisation's planned reform and established a consultative process for the reform, according to sources.
Improving access to medicines in developing countries through local pharmaceutical production is at the centre of a project involving several institutional actors working on health and trade. Technology transfer is key to local production, but some prerequisites like a favourable policy environment and the ability of developing countries to use technology transfer are essential to encourage local production, according to panellists at a recent event.
After ten days of discussions, country delegates closed the annual World Health Assembly today with the adoption of a set of decisions, one of which is a drastic programme of reforms that is intended to restore the World Health Organization’s central place in public health governance.
Significant budget cuts being approved this week at the World Health Organization will not affect programmes related to intellectual property rights, innovation and public health, a WHO official has told Intellectual Property Watch. In fact, the WHO is intensifying its work in these areas.