Featured

Featured posts

Medicines Law & Policy’s director, Ellen ’t Hoen, receives high Netherlands honour for her...

Ellen 't Hoen has been appointed Officer of the Order of Oranje-Nassau, a royal award which recognises those who merit particular appreciation from society...

Gilead’s sofosbuvir patent in India – options for global access to new hepatitis C...

Earlier this month the US pharmaceutical company Gilead obtained a patent in India for sofosbuvir, part of a treatment of hepatitis C that became...

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...

“The diseases were in the South and the drugs were in the North”: Ellen...

Ellen 't Hoen discusses the HIV epidemic in the 90's, which hit sub-Saharan Africa particularly hard, and was exacerbated by the lack of availability...
Generic lumacaftor/ivacaftor

Cystic Fibrosis Buyers Club Shows the UK Government The Way

The move by a group of parents of children with cystic fibrosis (CF) to set up a buyers club to gain access to treatments...

BMJ Commentary: Overriding drug and medical technology patents for pandemic recovery: a legitimate move...

Interest in the use of compulsory licensing is making a comeback in high-income countries in response to concerns about access to Covid-19 vaccines and...

Covid-19 and the comeback of compulsory licensing

The Covid-19 outbreak raises many questions, including some we can answer using experiences gained in previous disease outbreaks. Here is one: how to deal...

Urgent collective action to meet the challenge of this pandemic crisis: a coronavirus related...

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, first described the present coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak as a pandemic on the 11th...

With technology transfer, 120 companies in low- and middle-income countries could manufacture mRNA vaccines

Recent reporting from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) has revealed efforts by BioNTech – the technology firm behind Pfizer’s projected $100 billion in Covid-19...

Covid shows the world it needs new rules to deal with pandemics

The World Health Assembly, the World Health Organization (WHO)'s annual decision-making meeting, begins next week and will run from 24 May - 1 June....