How patents, data exclusivity and SPCs interact to extend market exclusivity of medicines: the...

Patents usually confer 20-year exclusive rights on inventions. Data exclusivity laws confer, depending on the country, 5 to 10 years’ exclusive rights over safety...

MSF’s Access Campaign is an invaluable actor in global health; shutting it down is...

On 20 June, STAT News reported that Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is closing down their Access Campaign, effective as of 31 December 2024. It...

Wrapping Up 2017 – some noteworthy medicines law and policy events.

2017 was a significant year for access to medicines and other medicines policy related events. Here are a few highlights of the last 12...

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...

Dutch Minister of Health writes open letter to pharma, threatens to name and shame

"Dear Pharma," writes the Dutch Minister of Health, Bruno Bruins in an open letter in the daily newspaper the Volkskrant, "Last week two messages jumped...

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...

Cystic Fibrosis Medicines Wars in Europe

Monday 4 February, the UK parliament will debate the issuing of a compulsory licence by the government, called ‘Crown use’, for the cystic fibrosis...

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...

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...

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...