Blog

The latest thoughts from Medicines Law & Policy partners.

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 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...
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...

TRIPS, technology transfer and access to pandemic countermeasures: What the WHO  Pandemic Treaty must...

The scrambling for access to Covid-19 vaccines by developing countries has reignited the debate on the WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)...

A better way to solve a crisis: A new mechanism for incentivising R&D on...

Antimicrobial resistance is the ‘silent’ pandemic: Globally, it costs 5 million lives a year, and is set to rise to more than 8 million...

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...
Cherry blossom

The Pandemic Agreement is here

In December 2021, the member states of the World Health Organization decided “to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument...

Dutch Court Orders AstraZeneca to Pay Damages in Patent Evergreening Case

Today the Dutch court made a long-awaited ruling in the patent evergreening case of health insurance company Menzis versus AstraZeneca. It found that AstraZeneca...

We need a Global Vaccines Taskforce, not just a British or European one

The European Commission has been heavily criticised for its performance over Covid-19 vaccine supply to European Union Member States. Despite the urgency of the...

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...