Category Health & IP

Disparity In Access To Medicines Spurs “Humanitarian” Patent Licensing

“There are shameful access disparities around the world” to life-saving medicines, Harvard University Global Access in Action project Co-Director Quentin Palfrey said at a 26 September Center for Strategic and International Studies event in Washington, DC. And while some of the challenges to fuller access involve pricing, getting medicines to poorer countries or populations means overcoming the obstacles of insufficient research and development (R&D) incentives, access barriers and polarised politics, he said.

Use Competition Law For Wider Access To Cheap Medicines?

The topic of access to medicines has gained momentum in recent years as high prices of new medicines affect developing countries and developed countries. The role of competition legislation in preventing market abuses and monopoly situations has been pointed to as a possible lever to facilitate access to generic medicines and balance the potential negative effects of intellectual property protection.

Panel Advances Key Public Interest Issues In Gene Editing Technology

WASHINGTON, DC -- The still-emerging breakthrough CRISPR gene editing tool has the potential to transform the field and do enormous good for humankind. But let’s make sure we understand it better and ensure the public interest before launching into using it too widely. Meanwhile, companies and researchers are actively licensing the technology. That was a message of a set of panellists working close to CRISPR’s development, speaking at a recent event in Washington, DC.

USTR Launches Review Of IP In Thailand After Reported Improvements On Enforcement

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) today announced an "out-of-cycle" review of Thailand's intellectual property policies after what USTR said were reports of improvement on several IP issues including trademarks and enforcement. Another area of the review will be pharmaceuticals.

Malaysia Grants Compulsory Licence For Generic Sofosbuvir Despite Gilead Licence

A much cheaper version of a groundbreaking hepatitis C medicine is expected to be available soon for the hundreds of thousands of hepatitis C patients in Malaysia, as it decided to grant a compulsory licence to sofosbuvir, according to sources. The decision comes right after the medicine originator decided to expand its voluntary licensing scheme to four more countries, including Malaysia. [Updated]

Workshop To Address Public Interest And CRISPR Gene Editing, CAR T Cancer Treatment

Experts at a one-day workshop in Washington DC next week will discuss public interest aspects of patents and two breakthrough new medical technologies related to gene editing (CRISPR) and cancer treatment (CAR T).

Malaysia Inclusion In Gilead Voluntary Licence – A Product Of Compulsory Licence Pressure

Fifa Rahman

Gilead’s announcement today that they would include four middle-income countries (Malaysia, Thailand, Belarus, Ukraine) in their sofosbuvir voluntary licence was a welcome surprise, and will enable millions access to their highly effective, but exorbitantly priced, drug. The decision to include these countries, however, no doubt is a response to increasing pressure from within these countries to either issue a compulsory licence (CL) or a government use licence (GUL), invalidate the sofosbuvir patents, or block data exclusivity for the drug.

India Grants Pfizer Patent On Pneumonia Vaccine, Stokes Fear Of Unaffordability

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India has granted Pfizer Inc a patent for its powerful pneumonia vaccine Prevenar 13, in a blow to some health groups that said this would put the treatment out of reach of thousands in poorer nations.

Report From WHO Fair Pricing Meeting Shows Balanced Discussion

A wide range of governments and stakeholders attended a closed meeting in the Netherlands in May to address the ongoing problem of pricing medicines to pay for research and the resulting lack of affordability of those medicines. The report from the World Health Organization-led meeting shows a range of points were made by participants and signals a move to change the global policy.