A few weeks after the failure of the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires to cut deals advancing issues from fisheries to e-commerce, some governments and trade experts around the world are concerned about the WTO’s future. Meanwhile, a couple of intellectual property-related provisions moved ahead after the ministerial without change. Continue reading ->
The mysterious death last week of Canadian billionaire Barry Sherman and his wife has raised many questions. For some, one question is what impact it will have on pharmaceutical competition in Canada, as his giant generic medicines company Apotex was seen as making a mark in access to medicines. It was also recalled that the company is the only one to have used an obscure provision of a World Trade Organization intellectual property agreement aimed at making more affordable medicines available in least developed countries. Continue reading ->
A delegation of heads of biotechnology companies visited Geneva this month to present the International Confederation of Biotechnology Trade Associations (ICBA). The ICBA was created in 2012, but is now looking to make its voice heard in Geneva and inform policy discussions, and is finding it is not easy to become an observer in some organisations. They also underlined the importance of intellectual property for the biotech sector, in particular to attract indispensable capital. The delegation sat down with Intellectual Property Watch’s Catherine Saez to talk about their Geneva visit. Continue reading ->
The topic of access to medicines has gained momentum in recent years as high prices of new medicines affect developing countries and developed countries. The role of competition legislation in preventing market abuses and monopoly situations has been pointed to as a possible lever to facilitate access to generic medicines and balance the potential negative effects of intellectual property protection. Continue reading ->
Gilead’s announcement today that they would include four middle-income countries (Malaysia, Thailand, Belarus, Ukraine) in their sofosbuvir voluntary licence was a welcome surprise, and will enable millions access to their highly effective, but exorbitantly priced, drug. The decision to include these countries, however, no doubt is a response to increasing pressure from within these countries to either issue a compulsory licence (CL) or a government use licence (GUL), invalidate the sofosbuvir patents, or block data exclusivity for the drug. Continue reading ->
According to many media this morning, citing anonymous sources, the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Body has reached a decision in a dispute challenging Australia's tobacco product plain packaging law. Australia appears to have won the case. The WTO is non-committal and says only a "confidential interim report" has been circulated. Australia is not commenting. Continue reading ->