Drug Price Transparency Calls Move from South Africa to World Health Assembly

by Katrina Perehudoff and Jennifer Sellin Over 30 states and 40 business and civil society groups debated strategies for affordable and sustainable medicines prices at...

Updated TRIPS Flexibilities Database

In January 2023, a number of cystic-fibrosis patient organisations asked the governments of Brazil, India, South Africa and Ukraine to invoke compulsory licensing and...

Medicines Law & Policy’s director, Ellen ’t Hoen, receives high Netherlands honour for her...

Ellen 't Hoen has been appointed Officer of the Order of Oranje-Nassau, a royal award which recognises those who merit particular appreciation from society...

The Waiver that Wasn’t: Is the pharma lobby responsible?

Systemic lobbying pressure from pharmaceutical companies – allegedly attached to threats to withdraw investments – may have been responsible for the watering down of...

Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation is taking AbbVie to court over excessive pricing of Humira –...

On 21 February, the Dutch Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation (PAF) took the bold step to take AbbVie to court, claiming the company’s pricing policy had...

Medicines Law & Policy welcomes WHO’s Solidarity Call to Action to realise equitable global...

The World Health Organization today with Costa Rica launched the "COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP)" to ensure that knowledge, data and intellectual property are...

Dutch Minister of Health writes open letter to pharma, threatens to name and shame

"Dear Pharma," writes the Dutch Minister of Health, Bruno Bruins in an open letter in the daily newspaper the Volkskrant, "Last week two messages jumped...

Wrapping up 2023 with some noteworthy medicines, law and policy developments

Welcome to our 2023 end-of-the-year blog, our annual and highly-biased run-through of notable access to medicines events of the year that is about to...

WHO is an essential forum for debates on intellectual property and public health

Recently, Health Policy Watch reported that some European countries at the World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Agreement negotiations maintain that intellectual property negotiations belong...

Dutch Health Care Institute Says No to Medicines Pirate

It seems the Dutch health care system and health care professionals are fed up with the abuse of the orphan medicines regulation, which is...