Blog

The latest thoughts from Medicines Law & Policy partners.

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...

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...

Advanced Purchase Agreements for Covid-19 Vaccines: Do they ensure Global Public Good?

Advanced Purchase Agreements (APAs) were part of a strategy to provide upfront financing for Covid-19 vaccines and to accelerate their development and availability. Since...

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...

New Dutch Foundation to Address High Medicines Pricing Announces Plan to File Complaint with...

The newly established Dutch Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation has announced its first action to address unreasonably high medicines prices in the Netherlands. The Foundation will...

Drug Price Transparency Calls Move from South Africa to World Health Assembly

by Katrina Perehudoff and Jennifer Sellin Over 30 states and 40 business and civil society groups debated strategies for affordable and sustainable medicines prices at...

The Most Common Misunderstanding about Compulsory Licensing

The belief that a country can only use compulsory licensing in cases of public health emergencies is a myth that has proven difficult to...

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...

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...

Medicines Law & Policy responds to US Health and Human Services Department request for...

On 12 December 2023 the US Health and Human Services Department (HHS) posted a notice and request for comments on “the implications of access...