Brief

What is the ‘know-how gap’ problem and how might it impact scaling up production...

This entire article is also available as a PDF by clicking here. 1. Introduction. How relevant are concerns about intellectual property rights causing problems for...

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....

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...

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...

EU Review of Pharmaceutical Incentives: Recommendations for Change

In 2016, the European Council decided it was time for a review of the incentives that the EU provides to companies that develop new...

Never say never – Why the High Income Countries that opted-out from the Art....

To limit the ability of patent owners to charge excessive prices for patented medicines, countries can grant compulsory licences which permit others to produce...

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...

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...

Continuing to ignore the problem of the know-how gap won’t make it go away.

The Covid-19 pandemic was a wake-up call for a variety of issues in access to medicines, one of which was finding a solution to...
wine glass half full

Transfer of technology and know-how for the production of pandemic-related health products in the...

A version of this brief was published on 13 June '25 by the Graduate Institute as part of their 'Governing Pandemic Snapshot' series: https://www.governingpandemics.org/gp-snapshot During...