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The latest thoughts from Medicines Law & Policy partners.

“Mutually agreed terms and conditions,” says it all.

On 4 March, Politico reported that the Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) is expressing doubt that the Pandemic Agreement...
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Wrapping up 2022 with some noteworthy medicines, law and policy events

Welcome to our annual, highly biased, overview of noteworthy events in the field of medicines law and policy. Also in 2022, Covid-19 remained a central...

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...

WHO’s Essential Medicines Committee takes aim at rising prices, adds new treatments for cancer...

On 1 October, the World Health Organization published its latest Model List of Essential Medicines (EML) and Essential Medicines for Children (EMLc). Updated roughly...

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 Care Institute Says No to Medicines Pirate

It seems the Dutch health care system and health care professionals are fed up with the abuse of the orphan medicines regulation, which is...

Wrapping up 2024: Noteworthy events in medicines law and policy around the globe

Welcome to Medicines Law & Policy’s  end of the year blog, our highly biased annual overview of memorable medicines law and policy events. January At the...

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...

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....

Trump Administration poses an unprecedented threat to life-saving health programmes 

On his first day in office, US President Trump issued several executive orders, one of which concerns US foreign aid. This order included a...