WHO Members meet to finalise the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing Instrument

In May 2025, the WHO member states adopted the Pandemic Agreement, but they left the work to establish an instrument for Pathogen Access and...

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 European Commission’s proposal on a new EU-wide compulsory licensing regime

Guest author Olga Gurgula is a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at Brunel Law School, Brunel University London A recent international health emergency, the...

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...

Something is going terribly wrong with the EU Compulsory Licensing Regulation

This week the European Parliament will vote on amendments to the Commission’s proposed regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on compulsory licensing...

Current drafts of the WHO Pandemic Accord lack a provision for access to knowhow/trade...

Negotiations are currently taking place at the World Health Organization (WHO) to conclude a new pandemic agreement by May 2024. The objective of the...

Legal tools that lower medicines prices have expanded access to medicines for over two...

LONDON, UK: Millions of people are priced out of access to life-saving medicines. Use of legal tools to reduce prices has been under-reported and...

UN “Pact for the Future” intellectual property actions need revision to ensure innovation and...

UPDATE: From 22-23 September 2024, the Summit of the Future took place and adopted the Pact for the Future. The intellectual property paragraph of...

The European Commission says Covid-19 vaccines should be global public goods, but do their...

The European Commission has entered into advance purchase agreements (APAs) for Covid-19 vaccines with six pharmaceutical companies and is concluding negotiations with two companies....

Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation is taking AbbVie to court over excessive pricing of Humira –...

On 21 February, the Dutch Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation (PAF) took the bold step to take AbbVie to court, claiming the company’s pricing policy had...