Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The Trump administration yesterday made some firm statements about reducing health care and drug prices for American consumers and making costs more transparent. The statements again appear to focus on other countries paying more for US-made drugs but also promote generic drugs.
The government of Malaysia continues to face pressure from the United States pharmaceutical industry and potentially the US government to undo an action taken to make a key hepatitis C medicine more affordable in the country. Now Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) has weighed in to defend the government's right to use a patent flexibility in global trade law that allows them to take such actions on behalf of their citizens.
The World Trade Organization is the prime gathering point for the world's governments to discuss and negotiate on policies of the day. A decades-long swinging pendulum within the WTO's committee on trade and intellectual property is IP's contribution to innovation and economy and its contribution to the public interest. At its meeting this week, the committee will feature discussions on both.
A ground-breaking new high-tech system to catch falsified medicines in the supply chain in Europe went into effect today, allowing prescription medicines to undergo verification for authenticity before reaching patients.
Tuberculosis and its variant - Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (DR-TB) - are global public health emergencies. Current treatment regimens are expensive, tedious and prolonged: the overall treatment duration is 20 months or more, requiring daily administration of drugs that are more toxic and less effective than those used to treat drug-susceptible TB. Most of the drugs for treating TB are old and are known to have severe side-effects, writes Sandeep K. Rathod.
Intellectual property is often pointed at as hindering access to medicines by resulting in their long-lasting unaffordability, a view which is strongly opposed by IP proponents. The discussions on access to medicines last week during the World Health Organization Executive Board meeting yielded a record number of interventions by member states and nongovernmental organisations, reflecting the importance of the issue.
President Donald Trump gave the US Congress a rosy, nationalistic presentation of the condition of the US economy and security last night and amid the range of issues raised, mentioned intellectual property twice in the context of trade, and extensively discussed lowering drug prices.
World Health Organization Board members agreed last week on a draft resolution for the preparation of a United Nations General Assembly high-level meeting on universal health coverage in the fall, following intensive closed consultations in which intellectual property rights played a significant role.
The World Health Organization Executive Board last week remained uncertain on the way forward on questions of access to influenza viruses as countries are increasingly implementing an international protocol regulating the sharing of genetic resources. The Board requested informal discussions be held in the lead-up to the annual World Health Assembly in May.
The World Health Organization today admitted to an unusual procedure to set up a debate on the health implications of a UN treaty on sharing of benefits from genetic resources. The new agenda item proposed by the WHO director general was accepted by the WHO Board today, but with member states questioning the governance of the move.