2018 Round-up of Noteworthy Medicines Law and Policy Events

We are reaching the end of 2018: Time for our end-of-the-year roundup of some significant developments in medicines law and policy. January The Chilean parliament started...

Dutch health insurance company Menzis takes AstraZeneca to court over patent evergreening

Today health insurance company Menzis announced  that it is taking the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to court over the pricing of Seroquel, a medicine...

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...

Uganda tells ARIPO: No more patents for pharmaceuticals

Uganda has notified the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO) that pharmaceutical inventions are not eligible for patentability in the country, Managing IP reported. With...

New WHO-UNITAID briefing paper: Improving Access to Covid-19 Treatments

A new briefing paper based on Medicines Law & Policy research outlines the legal instruments available for countries seeking to access key therapeutics to...

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...

World Health Organization Members ask for more time to solve difficult negotiations on access...

World Health Organization member states will propose to continue negotiations on a critical annex to the Pandemic Agreement, after being unable to bridge key...

Wrapping up 2023 with some noteworthy medicines, law and policy developments

Welcome to our 2023 end-of-the-year blog, our annual and highly-biased run-through of notable access to medicines events of the year that is about to...

UN High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines calls for stronger public leadership in innovation...

The UN High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines published its report on 14 September. The Panel was established on 19 November 2015 by UN...

Urgent collective action to meet the challenge of this pandemic crisis: a coronavirus related...

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, first described the present coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak as a pandemic on the 11th...