Brief

Pharmaceutical patents and data exclusivity in an age of AI-driven drug discovery and development

This is an excerpt from a longer report on AI, medicines development and the patent system. Download the full report here (or by clicking...

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...

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....

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...
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...

The European Commission says Covid-19 vaccines should be global public goods, but do their...

The European Commission has entered into advance purchase agreements (APAs) for Covid-19 vaccines with six pharmaceutical companies and is concluding negotiations with two companies....

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...

Opmerkingen bij de notitie Dwanglicenties van B.J. Bruins, Minister voor Medische Zorg.

Op 15 juni 2018 stuurde Minister Bruins een notitie over dwanglicenties aan de Tweede Kamer. In deze briefing maken wij een aantal voorlopige opmerkingen...

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...

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...