Filling the need for trusted information on national health issues
“The Indonesian government hopes to implement one of the largest ever examples of ‘compulsory licensing,’ which will enable the generic manufacture of drugs still under patent,” IRIN reports. “Under the World Trade Organization’s Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), countries can override patents for public health purposes by…
“The negotiations launched this week for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Thailand and the European Union have raised concerns among both Thai and European non-governmental organizations [NGOs], who fear that E.U. demands could have a negative impact on Thailand’s progressive public health policies,” Inter Press Service reports. “Launched during Thai Prime…
“On March 5-6, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Council of the World Trade Organization [WTO] will meet in Geneva to seal the fate of the proposal lengthening the TRIPS transition period for the 49 least-developed countries [LDCs],” Devex’s “The Development Newswire” reports, noting, “The transition period, set to…
“GlaxoSmithKline’s HIV/AIDS drugs business is to share intellectual property rights on children’s medicine in a patent pool designed to make treatments more widely available in poor countries,” Reuters reports. “ViiV Healthcare, majority-owned by GSK, is the second research-based pharmaceutical business to sign up to the new Medicines Patent Pool, following a lead set in…
“The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today launched a new issue brief” (.pdf), titled “TRIPS transition period extensions for least-developed countries [LDCs],” a UNAIDS press release reports. “The issue brief outlines that failure to extend the transition period for least-developed countries to become fully…
“President Barack Obama outlined an ambitious agenda in his State of the Union address Tuesday that included raising the minimum wage, increasing spending on infrastructure, attacking climate change and passing gun-control legislation,” the Wall Street Journal reports (2/13). “Obama used his State of the Union address Tuesday night to urge the United States to…
“For the first time, the three global intergovernmental bodies dealing with health, intellectual property and trade have pooled their expertise on a study of policies needed to advance medical and health technologies and to ensure they reach the people who need them,” a WHO press release states. The book — released by the WHO,…
