Original news and analysis on international IP policy
At a side event to the opening of the 2014 World Health Assembly, strong statements were made by BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) country ministers and representatives to assume leadership and cooperate to tackle the issue of inaccessibility to affordable medicines in theirs and developing countries.
The United Nations Development Programme has launched a new publication on the use of competition law to promote access to health technologies. The guidebook describes competition law as an underused tool to be harnessed by developing countries and is designed to help them proficiently using it.
World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan opened the annual World Health Assembly today with strong calls to address a wide range of top health concerns across the world. This included a call for the global health community to work to assert the primacy of health concerns over economic interests.
The International Organisation of la Francophonie in collaboration with French pharmaceutical umbrella organisation "les Entreprises du médicaments," organised a roundtable on non-communicable diseases on the eve of the annual World Health Assembly.
Several health ministers as well as various stakeholders were invited to discuss "the fight against non-communicable diseases: a shared responsibility" on 18 May.
As the World Health Assembly, a new partnership has been launched by three major public health actors in the field of HIV treatment. The initiative is meant to find improved treatments for children suffering from HIV/AIDs. Although all actors agree that significant progress has been made on adult treatments, children-specific medicines are still lacking.
A new report from the World Health Organization concludes that prices of HIV treatments vary greatly between middle-income countries (MICs), often depending on patent landscape, licensing agreements, whether drugs were sourced from originator companies, and regulatory approval. For third-line treatments, the price of drugs remains a challenge for all, with newer products more likely to be patented in key countries of production.
The annual World Health Assembly kicks off next week with a full agenda of new and old public health issues, including several related to intellectual property, pricing, and research and development. Below is a guide to the key issues for Intellectual Property Watch readers.
The Geneva IP delegates list is updated! As a special feature for our subscribers, Intellectual Property Watch has assembled a new list of many of the leading government delegates working on intellectual property issues in Geneva.
BASEL -- Students from around the world are gathering momentum to challenge their universities’ licensing policies and research and development systems. That was one of the messages emerging from the annual meeting of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) Europe.
As the future United Nations development goals are being debated and decided, two important reports make the case for inclusion of a discussion on global governance and its impact on health.