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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....

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...

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...

Humiragate: AbbVie’s desperate attempts to keep its monopoly

A new front has opened in the war against Abbvie's efforts to sustain and secure its Humira market monopoly. This time in The Netherlands...

Time to put a stop to the abuse of orphan drug regulation- the latest...

Today, the Dutch Medical Journal (Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde) reported on the case of lutetium-octreotaat, a cancer drug developed by researchers in the Dutch...

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....

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...
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...

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...