Brief

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...

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....

Submission to the US International Trade Commission

On 17 June 2022, World Trade Organization (WTO) Members adopted a Ministerial Decision outlining flexibilities in the WTO’s Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property...

Lessons for a pandemic preparedness treaty from previous successes and failures with treaty-based technology...

This post can also be downloaded as a PDF here. 1.      Introduction Scaling-up production of new vaccines to provide many billions of doses on a time-scale...

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...

The EU proposed Covid waivers of certain TRIPS rules are mostly meaningless

Since October 2020, discussions have been ongoing at the World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council about a waiver of...

The European Parliament has now explicitly acknowledged the know-how problem too: time to include...

This technical briefing note is also available as a PDF here. We have been calling attention to the problem of sharing know-how necessary for the...

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...

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...

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...