Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The World Health Organization Executive Board this week has addressed the relationship between the UN agency and its funders and lobbyists, examined the budget for the next biennium, and looked at the issue of the growing resistance of bacteria to…
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, boasted success this week as its biennial replenishment conference attracted US$ 7.5 billion in pledges, which is the organisation said is expected to allow 300 million additional children to be vaccinated in poor countries. The vaccine…
At the World Health Organization Executive Board today, a group of countries tabled a proposal to extend the WHO plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property until 2022. Yesterday, the Executive Board took note of the Global Vaccine Action Plan while some countries remarked on issues of affordability and accessibility. And today, one of the key discussions of the week - on the engagement of WHO with lobbyists, donors, and other interested non-governmental parties - has begun.
The World Health Organization Executive Board yesterday adopted a resolution on Ebola, on the eve of today’s opening of its 10-day meeting addressing a broad range of health issues, including several of relevance to the intellectual property and innovation community. Today, Italy requested that member states be involved in the setting of WHO guidelines, raising governance issues, while WHO Director General Margaret Chan called for strong health systems and reform to the WHO structure, and asked for room to move on WHO relations with industry.
Biosimilars are a hot topic. Beyond the colossal profits foreseen by some, drawing a lot of interested parties into the game, developing countries mean to play a role in this new frontier. However, biosimilars - close copies of biopharmaceutical products - are difficult and very costly to produce and come as a challenge to the generic industry used to duplicating small molecules. And some warn about differences in regulatory requirements, which could effectively boot developing countries out of the global market.
Several years ago, the World Intellectual Property Organization set up a project aimed at helping bring together those with intellectual property rights and those with ideas for research to develop medical products for people in need. The project, WIPO Re:Search, has gathered numerous partners and is beginning to look ahead to its next phases, including the possible eventuality of drug development, according to the WIPO secretariat.
A new report from the World Health Organization examines the Global action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases 2013-2020 (known as the Global NCD Action Plan) and provides some “lessons learnt from implementation.” The report calls for urgent action by governments to stop the “epidemic” of cancer and mostly preventable diseases from sources like tobacco use, salt intake, physical inactivity, and high blood pressure. This includes ensuring treatment is available and affordable, it says.
Pharmaceutical manufacturer Gilead has given its side to this week's story of the rejection of its patent on a hepatitis C treatment in India, and it insists it will prevail in making its medicines available in India on its terms.
Today's rejection by the Patent Office Controller of India of a patent application by Gilead company for a key drug against hepatitis C is being hailed by advocates as a path to dramatically lower costs of treatment for the disease. Hepatitis C has been noteworthy for exorbitantly priced medicines over the past year. A look at the decision shows that a provision in India's law continues to stop patent applications if they fail to show sufficient novelty and inventive step - and are subject to opposition.
The upcoming World Health Organization Executive Board annual January meeting will be 10 days. Included in the list of issues to be addressed are the engagement of the organisation with lobbyists and donors, antimicrobial resistance, and the potential establishment of a pooled fund of voluntary contributions for research and development for diseases primarily affecting developing countries.
The World Health Organization today optimistically announced progress in the search for efficient vaccines to fight the Ebola virus. Tests conducted so far show acceptable safety profiles, and public-private vaccine alliance Gavi has committed to fund Ebola vaccines.
All year long, Intellectual Property Watch expends great energy and resources to bring hundreds of carefully written, detailed stories on policymaking - technical committee meetings, legislation, negotiations, legal cases, and latest reports and papers. But in what is perhaps typical of readers everywhere, many of the best-read IP-Watch stories of 2014 were those few that involved elections and personnel issues and India, followed by a range of hot button issues such as high-priced medicines, copyright and knowledge access, patent valuation, or internet surveillance.