The Role of Activism in Shaping Law and Policies that Support Access to Medicines
This article is also available as a PDF here.
Almost 26 years ago, here in Amsterdam, on November 25-26, 1999, Health Action International, Médecins Sans...
WTO Covid-19 TRIPS Decision: Some observations
This morning, 17 June at 5 AM the 12th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference (MC12) approved a package of decisions and declarations. The...
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...
Current drafts of the WHO Pandemic Accord lack a provision for access to knowhow/trade...
Negotiations are currently taking place at the World Health Organization (WHO) to conclude a new pandemic agreement by May 2024. The objective of the...
Proposed TRIPS waiver a hollow diplomatic compromise with little practical impact
In October of 2020, 9 months into the pandemic, fearing conflicts over intellectual property (IP) related to medical measures to fight the pandemic, India...
Ensuring that intellectual property rights aren’t a barrier to scaling-up: the remarkable example of...
This week various international bodies are tackling different challenges in meeting the urgent problem of scaling-up manufacture of and access to vaccines for Covid-19....
Sharing know-how/trade secrets during a pandemic: We must be planning for it now
Medicines Law & Policy has recently proposed a provision for inclusion in the draft WHO pandemic instrument currently being discussed in Geneva (here and...
Advanced Purchase Agreements for Covid-19 Vaccines: Do they ensure Global Public Good?
Advanced Purchase Agreements (APAs) were part of a strategy to provide upfront financing for Covid-19 vaccines and to accelerate their development and availability. Since...
The last mile: A few suggestions for the WHO Pandemic Agreement’s last two weeks...
This technical briefing note is also available as a PDF here.
On 16 April, the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to draft and...
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...