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...
How not to solve a crisis: The European Commission’s Plan for Transferable Data Exclusivity...
Drug-resistant infections, sometimes called “superbugs,” killed an estimated 1.27 million people in 2019, a number set to rise to 50 million by 2050. It is...
Dutch Court Orders AstraZeneca to Pay Damages in Patent Evergreening Case
Today the Dutch court made a long-awaited ruling in the patent evergreening case of health insurance company Menzis versus AstraZeneca. It found that AstraZeneca...
“This week, the medicines were not there”: What is at stake in the pandemic...
Earlier this week I listened to a testimony from a community worker at a maternity ward where HIV-positive women gave birth. 17 babies were...
FDA approval of injectable lenacapavir for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) opens the road to ending...
On 18th June 2025, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of long-acting antiretroviral medicine lenacapavir (LEN-LA), for the prevention of...
Some Surprises in the European Commission’s New Intellectual Property Strategy
The European Commission's new intellectual property (IP) strategy is out and it holds a number of surprises for access to medicines. After restating the...
The new IP strategy of war-torn Ukraine should prioritise public health and national security
Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine continues for the third year. The Russian occupation forces have already killed tens of thousands of civilians, including children. They have...
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...
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...
TRIPS, technology transfer and access to pandemic countermeasures: What the WHO Pandemic Treaty must...
The scrambling for access to Covid-19 vaccines by developing countries has reignited the debate on the WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)...