Blog

The latest thoughts from Medicines Law & Policy partners.

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...

The € 7.4 billion for Covid-19 product and vaccine development needs a few strings...

On 4 May 2020, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hosted the Coronavirus Global Response conference, an on-line pledging event to accelerate the...

Updated TRIPS Flexibilities Database

In January 2023, a number of cystic-fibrosis patient organisations asked the governments of Brazil, India, South Africa and Ukraine to invoke compulsory licensing and...

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...

Wrapping up 2023 with some noteworthy medicines, law and policy developments

Welcome to our 2023 end-of-the-year blog, our annual and highly-biased run-through of notable access to medicines events of the year that is about to...

Dolutegravir Patent Licences Can Provide Access To All

This year the World Health Organization (WHO) added dolutegravir, an antiretroviral medicine for the treatment of HIV infection, to its Model List of Essential...

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...

Imagine if health and trade ministers would meet in one room this week

A earlier version of this commentary was published on 28 November 2021 by Barron's. This is a time of missed opportunities. This week, trade ministers...

New Dutch Foundation to Address High Medicines Pricing Announces Plan to File Complaint with...

The newly established Dutch Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation has announced its first action to address unreasonably high medicines prices in the Netherlands. The Foundation will...

Price, profit and the Covid-19 health technology pool: The example of remdesivir

We cannot yet know the precise trajectory of the Covid-19 pandemic, nor which therapies or vaccines will eventually prove most effective in its treatment...