Blog

The latest thoughts from Medicines Law & Policy partners.

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...

Access to medicines amendment of the WTO TRIPS Agreement. Hype or hope?

On 30 January 2017 the World Trade Organization (WTO) announced the first ever amendment to the TRIPS Agreement under the headline WTO members welcome...

Fair Medicines Pricing requires addressing monopolies and increasing transparency in pharmaceutical markets

The 4th WHO Fair Pricing Forum took place from 6 - 8 February 2024. Ellen 't Hoen spoke at the opening plenary. Below are...

Brazil’s Federal Court Reviews Medicines Mailbox Patents

This week the media reported that the Brazilian federal court removed the patent protection for eculizumab, sold under the brand name Soliris by Alexion...

The European Commission’s compulsory licensing proposals are sensible but do not go far enough

An earlier version of this comment was published in Barron's on 21 July 2023. A Spanish translation of it is also available from El...

Thanks to the European Commission, Biogen can extend Tecfidera monopoly for at least two...

According to an investigation by Follow the Money, a Dutch investigative journalism outlet, the European Commission restored the market exclusivity of Tecfidera, a multiple...

ML&P’s Comments to the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) on the Zero Draft of the...

These remarks were delivered on the occasion of the fourth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement...

The EU proposed Covid waivers of certain TRIPS rules are mostly meaningless

Since October 2020, discussions have been ongoing at the World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council about a waiver of...

“This week, the medicines were not there”: What is at stake in the pandemic...

Earlier this week I listened to a testimony from a community worker at a maternity ward where HIV-positive women gave birth. 17 babies were...

The European Commission’s proposal on a new EU-wide compulsory licensing regime

Guest author Olga Gurgula is a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at Brunel Law School, Brunel University London A recent international health emergency, the...