The Expanding Reach of the European Patent Office. Good for Health?
The European Patent Office (EPO) is tasked with the examination of patent applications and the granting of patents when these applications meet the patentability...
Medicines Patent Pool signs first Covid-19 licence agreement with Merck Sharp & Dohme. Others...
The Medicines Patent Pool, a UN-backed organisation whose mission is to expand access to essential medicines around the world, today announced its first agreement...
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...
Submission to the US International Trade Commission
On 17 June 2022, World Trade Organization (WTO) Members adopted a Ministerial Decision outlining flexibilities in the WTO’s Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property...
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...
Pharmaceutical Pricing Hostages
Ireland seems to be the stage of some of the most bizarre pharmaceutical company behaviour these days. This month, the pharmaceutical company CSL Behring...
European Commission Publishes Expert Panel’s Recommendations on High Drug Prices
This month the European Commission published Innovative Payment Models for High-Cost Innovative Medicines, a report of the Expert Panel on effective ways of investing...
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...
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...