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...
Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation meets AbbVie in court, looking to advance its pricing case
“The value of a human life is infinite, but unfortunately our healthcare budget is not,” said former Dutch Health Minister Bruno Bruins, quoted by...
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...
Gilead’s sofosbuvir patent in India – options for global access to new hepatitis C...
Earlier this month the US pharmaceutical company Gilead obtained a patent in India for sofosbuvir, part of a treatment of hepatitis C that became...
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...
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...
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...
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...
“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...
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...