Cancer Drug Pricing on the World Health Organization’s Executive Board Agenda
On Thursday 24 January, the World Health Organization’s 144th Executive Board meeting will kick off in Geneva. One of the agenda items is access...
Time to put a stop to the abuse of orphan drug regulation- the latest...
Today, the Dutch Medical Journal (Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde) reported on the case of lutetium-octreotaat, a cancer drug developed by researchers in the Dutch...
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...
Are gene-editing therapies patentable? A WIPO side event investigates.
On 6 December, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) organised an interesting panel on the patentability of new gene- and cell-based medical therapies, as a side...
New Database Documents the Power of TRIPS Flexibilities
Medicines Law & Policy has published an on-line database of instances of the use of TRIPS flexibilities in public health contexts, titled the TRIPS...
WIPO and pharma industry launch global medicines patent database
On 25 September, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in collaboration with the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) launched the Patent...
Dutch health insurance company Menzis takes AstraZeneca to court over patent evergreening
Today health insurance company Menzis announced that it is taking the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to court over the pricing of Seroquel, a medicine...
CJEU Ruling on Truvada recalls ‘evergreening’ goes against public health interests
On 25th July 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rendered its preliminary ruling on the interpretation of Article 3(a) of Regulation...
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...
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...