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 People vs. AbbVie
Today, 9 May 2025, is an important day in court for the Dutch Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation (PAF). In February 2023, PAF started a court...
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...
WHO is an essential forum for debates on intellectual property and public health
Recently, Health Policy Watch reported that some European countries at the World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Agreement negotiations maintain that intellectual property negotiations belong...
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...
Time to put a stop to the abuse of orphan drug regulation- the latest...
Today, the Dutch Medical Journal (Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde) reported on the case of lutetium-octreotaat, a cancer drug developed by researchers in the Dutch...
Generic versions of a lifesaving cystic fibrosis treatment will save patients $360,000 a year...
Generic versions of a cystic fibrosis treatment will now be available at $6,375 per child, per year under a new scheme – offering hope...
Are gene-editing therapies patentable? A WIPO side event investigates.
On 6 December, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) organised an interesting panel on the patentability of new gene- and cell-based medical therapies, as a side...
The € 7.4 billion for Covid-19 product and vaccine development needs a few strings...
On 4 May 2020, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hosted the Coronavirus Global Response conference, an on-line pledging event to accelerate the...
WTO Members discuss proposal to suspend certain intellectual property protection during the Covid-19 crisis
An earlier version of this comment was published by The Wire on 13 October 2020.
On 2 October, India and South Africa sent a proposal...