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...
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...
The People vs. AbbVie
Today, 9 May 2025, is an important day in court for the Dutch Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation (PAF). In February 2023, PAF started a court...
Wrapping Up 2017 – some noteworthy medicines law and policy events.
2017 was a significant year for access to medicines and other medicines policy related events. Here are a few highlights of the last 12...
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...
Medicines Excitement in the Netherlands – New Health Minister announces firm action on...
The new Minister of Health of the Netherlands, Bruno Bruins, came in guns blazing when he put the pharmaceutical industry on notice and announced...
Medicines Law & Policy statement at WHO PABS negotiations (IGWG 5)
Co-chairs, Thank you for the opportunity to say a few words.
My comments address issues related to technology transfer (TT), a topic we have been...
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...
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...
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...