Blog

The latest thoughts from Medicines Law & Policy partners.

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...

Corbyn’s Compulsory Licenses. Will they work?

On 24 September, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the UK Labour party, announced a series of measures to bring medicines pricing in check and to...

Trump Administration poses an unprecedented threat to life-saving health programmes 

On his first day in office, US President Trump issued several executive orders, one of which concerns US foreign aid. This order included a...

Medicines Patent Pool signs first Covid-19 licence agreement with Merck Sharp & Dohme. Others...

The Medicines Patent Pool, a UN-backed organisation whose mission is to expand access to essential medicines around the world, today announced its first agreement...

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...
wine glass half full

Transfer of technology and know-how for the production of pandemic-related health products in the...

A version of this brief was published on 13 June '25 by the Graduate Institute as part of their 'Governing Pandemic Snapshot' series: https://www.governingpandemics.org/gp-snapshot During...

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...

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...

The new EU compulsory licensing regime needs to allow the export of medicines

Guest author Olga Gurgula is a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at Brunel Law School, Brunel University London. A war-weary Ukraine critically depends on the support of...

Cystic Fibrosis Medicines Wars in Europe

Monday 4 February, the UK parliament will debate the issuing of a compulsory licence by the government, called ‘Crown use’, for the cystic fibrosis...