Blog

The latest thoughts from Medicines Law & Policy partners.

Ensuring that intellectual property rights aren’t a barrier to scaling-up: the remarkable example of...

This week various international bodies are tackling different challenges in meeting the urgent problem of scaling-up manufacture of and access to vaccines for Covid-19....

European Commission Publishes Expert Panel’s Recommendations on High Drug Prices

This month the European Commission published Innovative Payment Models for High-Cost Innovative Medicines, a report of the Expert Panel on effective ways of investing...

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...

The new IP strategy of war-torn Ukraine should prioritise public health and national security

Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine continues for the third year. The Russian occupation forces have already killed tens of thousands of civilians, including children. They have...

Price, profit and the Covid-19 health technology pool: The example of remdesivir

We cannot yet know the precise trajectory of the Covid-19 pandemic, nor which therapies or vaccines will eventually prove most effective in its treatment...

Medicines Law & Policy Intervention at the WHO Pandemic Accord Negotiations

This statement was delivered on 19 February at the World Health Organization in Geneva, on the occasion of the 8th Intergovernmental Negotiating Body to...

Submission to the US International Trade Commission

On 17 June 2022, World Trade Organization (WTO) Members adopted a Ministerial Decision outlining flexibilities in the WTO’s Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property...

Vaccine knowledge needs to be a global public good: Remarks to the World Trade...

Ellen ‘t Hoen, Medicines Law & Policy, at the World Trade Organization-World Health Organization High-Level Dialogue on Expanding COVID-19 Vaccine Manufacturing to Promote Equitable...

The European Commission’s proposal for an EU wide compulsory licensing mechanism

In 2006 the European Generics Association was seeking clarification from the European Commission on whether generic versions of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) could be supplied to...

Lessons for a pandemic preparedness treaty from previous successes and failures with treaty-based technology...

This post can also be downloaded as a PDF here. 1.      Introduction Scaling-up production of new vaccines to provide many billions of doses on a time-scale...