With the sixth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) meeting to develop a  pandemic accord currently underway in Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief minced no words when he slammed “groups with vested interests” for trying to sabotage the negotiations. “Twenty years ago, the tobacco industry tried to undermine negotiations on the WHO […] Continue reading ->
Women Deliver, one of the world’s largest gatherings on gender equity and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), opened in Kigali in Rwanda on Monday amid a global backlash against abortion. “We’re facing enormous headwinds against gender equality, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, and a growing anti-rights movement worldwide,” said Maliha Khan, […] Continue reading ->
The licensing agreement reached between Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and the Stop TB Partnership on Thursday to allow the generic production of the tuberculosis drug, bedaquiline, is simply a “stop-gap” measure that applies to a limited number of countries, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). At least nine countries in the Eastern Europe and Central […] Continue reading ->
A tuberculosis (TB) vaccine candidate that has shown modest efficacy rates received a $550 million boost from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and Wellcome Trust, which announced on Tuesday that they will cover its Phase 3 clinical trials. The candidate vaccine, M72, showed modest 54% efficacy in preventing the development of symptomatic TB […] Continue reading ->
The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) announced sublicensing agreements with seven manufacturers to produce and distribute generic versions of Japanese pharmaceutical company Shinogi’s COVID-19 antiviral treatment in 117 low- and middle-income countries.  Ensitrelvir is an oral antiviral currently only approved in Japan under the country’s emergency regulatory approval system. The drug is being evaluated under a […] Continue reading ->