Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Intellectual property issues emerged at the World Health Organization Executive Board today as members discussed fake and substandard medicines, with some countries saying that the fight against such medicines should not serve as a pretext to enforce intellectual property rights and prevent access to safe generic medicines.
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.
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.
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.
The Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has been working for several years to fight “fraudulent” medicines in the global supply chain. But an alleged new draft model legislation it is developing includes intellectual property rights, an issue which has led to intensive debates in other international fora. This week, a closed-door UNODC informal expert group drafting the model legislation is meeting in Vienna.