Blog

The latest thoughts from Medicines Law & Policy partners.

EU Review of Pharmaceutical Incentives: Recommendations for Change

In 2016, the European Council decided it was time for a review of the incentives that the EU provides to companies that develop new...

What is the ‘know-how gap’ problem and how might it impact scaling up production...

This entire article is also available as a PDF by clicking here. 1. Introduction. How relevant are concerns about intellectual property rights causing problems for...

The European Commission says Covid-19 vaccines should be global public goods, but do their...

The European Commission has entered into advance purchase agreements (APAs) for Covid-19 vaccines with six pharmaceutical companies and is concluding negotiations with two companies....

The Power of TRIPS Flexibilities in Medicines Procurement

The government of Malaysia has began to roll out treatment of people infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV).  Treatment will be a combination of...

Urgent collective action to meet the challenge of this pandemic crisis: a coronavirus related...

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, first described the present coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak as a pandemic on the 11th...

Medicines price transparency: Ground still left to cover

Parts of this blog were previously published in the Lancet Regional Health Europe Secret medicines prices are hotly debated as European health systems struggle to...

A better way to solve a crisis: A new mechanism for incentivising R&D on...

Antimicrobial resistance is the ‘silent’ pandemic: Globally, it costs 5 million lives a year, and is set to rise to more than 8 million...

Are gene-editing therapies patentable? A WIPO side event investigates.

On 6 December, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) organised an interesting panel on the patentability of new gene- and cell-based medical therapies, as a side...

Some Surprises in the European Commission’s New Intellectual Property Strategy

The European Commission's new intellectual property (IP) strategy is out and it holds a number of surprises for access to medicines. After restating the...

New reports offer evidence for extending the WTO Decision on TRIPS to Covid-19 therapeutics...

In February 2024, the 13th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference will take place. WTO Members are expected to decide whether to extend the...