Faced with unreasonable medicines prices, the Netherlands introduces pharmacy exemption in patent law.

On 1 February 2019, article 53(3), second sentence of the Dutch Patent Act 1995 came into force introducing a patent exemption for the preparation...

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...

Medicines Law & Policy responds to US Health and Human Services Department request for...

On 12 December 2023 the US Health and Human Services Department (HHS) posted a notice and request for comments on “the implications of access...

New Database Documents the Power of TRIPS Flexibilities

Medicines Law & Policy has published an on-line database of instances of the use of TRIPS flexibilities in public health contexts, titled the TRIPS...

How patents, data exclusivity and SPCs interact to extend market exclusivity of medicines: the...

Patents usually confer 20-year exclusive rights on inventions. Data exclusivity laws confer, depending on the country, 5 to 10 years’ exclusive rights over safety...

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...

Covid-19 intellectual property pool gaining support

While drug and vaccine developers are working on tools to prevent and treat Covid- 19, here is a question the rest of us should...

The elephant in the room at the WHO Executive Board

The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke harshly about the lack of Covid-19 vaccines in developing countries at the opening of...

It is not too late to solve the know-how problem in the WHO Pandemic...

Introduction One of the most important Intellectual Property (IP) problems which the Pandemic Accord negotiators need to solve is now in danger of being completely...

The Expanding Reach of the European Patent Office. Good for Health?

The European Patent Office (EPO) is tasked with the examination of patent applications and the granting of patents when these applications meet the patentability...