Category Venues

WHO Asked To Square Its Position On Herbicide; EU Evaluation Seen As Flawed

Does glyphosate, better known under its brand name RoundUp, increase the risk of cancer in humans, or not? Yesterday, some World Health Organization members, while hailing a draft resolution on cancer later adopted, underlined a lack of coordination on glysophate between the WHO and its agency for cancer research. Separately, a renowned scientist sent a letter to European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, saying the evaluations on the herbicide are flawed, and should be done again to safeguard public health.

Resolution On Cancer Hailed By WHO Members, Easily Adopted In Committee

It is not a mystery, cancer has been spreading for decades, in particular in low and-middle income countries, and is not stopping its course in the foreseeable future. Members of the World Health Organization in committee yesterday adopted a resolution to improve prevention, diagnostics, treatment, and palliative care for cancer, in statements stripped of controversy.

US Supreme Court Adopts International Exhaustion For Patents: Paving the way for parallel imports to exert downward pressure on domestic pharmaceutical (and other) prices

Frederick M. Abbott writes: The Supreme Court of the United States on May 30, 2017 adopted a rule of international exhaustion of patent rights for the United States in Impression Products v. Lexmark International, No. 15-1189. The near-unanimous decision authored by Chief Justice Roberts is unambiguous and unequivocal.[1] The Court paid short shrift to contrary decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Jazz Photo Corp. v. International Trade Commission, 264 F. 3d 1094 (Fed. Cir. 2001) and in this case on certiorari, Lexmark International v. Impression Products, 816 F.3d 721 (Fed. Cir. 2016).

In addition to adopting international exhaustion, the Supreme Court ruled firmly against enforcement of post-sale restrictions through infringement actions based on patent. The Court allowed for enforcement under contract law of limitations that may be included in patent licenses.

WHA Committee Bans IP Reference In Substandard And Falsified Medicines

The “delicious acronym SSFFC” - as described by Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director-general for Health Systems and Innovation at the World Health Organization - will no longer be used by WHO to describe substandard and fake medical products, when a committee's decision is adopted by the full World Health Assembly tomorrow. And key to this decision is that protection of intellectual property rights is not a competence of the UN health agency.

Cancer Drugs: Innovation ‘Blackmail’ Leads To Unaffordable Prices, Delinkage Needed, Speakers Say

What if you get an aggressive form of breast cancer, and the treatment exists but it is too expensive for you to get? You die. Tragic stories and the possibilities to avert them were centre stage at a panel last week on the margin of the ongoing World Health Assembly. Delinking the cost of research and development from the market prices of medicines was urged by speakers on the panel: representatives of cancer patients, civil society, and the Brazilian deputy ambassador.

Health R&D Still Underfunded – WHO Members Concerned, NGOs Call For More Ambition

Hopes of stimulating research and development for diseases affecting primarily poor countries and vulnerable populations, through a strategic work plan at the World Health Organization, are dimmed by the lack of funding. An R&D project on a single-dose malaria cure had to be cut short, while a global observatory for health research and development, recently launched, might be hampered in its progress, according to officials.

Global Health R&D: Evidence, Priorities, Coordination

World Health Assembly Agenda Item 13.5 is descriptively-yet-uninformatively labelled “Follow-up of the report of the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG).” But that anodyne title actually masks an important milestone in the World Health Organization’s long-running efforts to increase R&D around neglected diseases and diseases of poverty.

Unlikely Alliance Of India, US Could Keep Medicines Access On WHO Agenda

It is not often that on the matter of access to medicines, India and the United States agree at the World Health Organization. But the issue of access to medicines is rising on the international agenda and developed countries are feeling the bite of prices of new medicines. Core beneficiaries of the patent system held steady this week, but among their defenders, the issue is blurring as some countries, such as the Netherlands, Greece and Portugal, are not putting up with industry prices and are saying it.

Review Of WHO Public Health And IP Strategy: Help Needed On TRIPS Flexibilities

International organisations, in particular the World Health Organization, should help poor countries implement the flexibilities enshrined in international trade rules, a number of developing countries said at the World Health Assembly on 26 May. WHO members in committee hailed and noted a report on the organisation's strategy on public health, innovation and intellectual property, the first part of an overall review. Civil society had another take on the report, and deplored slow progress on access to medicines.