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The World Trade Organization General Council today agreed to a two-year extension for countries to adopt an amendment to the agency’s intellectual property agreement intended to help small economies get affordable medical products. But a decision on non-violation complaints will be left to the December WTO ministerial in Buenos Aires. Continue reading ->


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The World Health Organization today issued two substantive reports on the problem of substandard and falsified medicines around the world, finding among other things that an estimated one in 10 medical products in low and middle income countries is either substandard or falsified. Continue reading ->


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First published on the Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) blog. Reprinted with permission.

By Thiru Balasubramaniam

Submitted on by thiru

On Monday, 27 November 2017, the WHO published the recommendations of the overall programme review of the global strategy and plan of action on public, health innovation and intellectual property (EB142/14).  The full report of the overall programme review (OPR) will be published on Tuesday, 28 November 2017 [Note: the full report is now available here]. The mandate for this work is provided resolution WHA68.18 (2015) which requested the Director-General to establish a “panel of 18 experts” to conduct an OPR of the global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property. (Source: EB142/14).  The composition of this expert panel can be found here:  http://www.who.int/medicines/innovation/gspa-review/members-list/en/

The expert panel provided 33 recommendations which included 17 forward looking ”high-priority actions” including on transparency and delinkage. Continue reading ->


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Published in SUNS #8580 dated 22 November 2017. Reprinted with permission from the Third World Network.

Geneva, 21 Nov (TWN) – A discussion document prepared by the Secretariat of the World Health Organization (WHO) proposes criteria to justify interventions with respect to medicines in transit.

This document is prepared for the 6th meeting of the Member State Mechanism (MSM) to be held from 28 November to 1 December at the WHO headquarters in Geneva. Continue reading ->


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NEW DELHI — Few topics in the global health agenda are as contentious as access to affordable medicines and medical care, and expectedly, divergent views permeated the discussions at a high-level conference in New Delhi, India last week. But if there is one thing that the three-day meet made amply clear, it was this: access to affordable healthcare has emerged as a global problem, and an emerging coalition of the like-minded, cutting across the developed and developing countries, is determined to have their voices heard in international policy circles on the issue. Continue reading ->


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Reprinted with permission. For the full original post, see the Medicines Law & Policy blog.

By Ellen ‘t Hoen

The new Minister of Health of the Netherlands, Bruno Bruins, came in guns blazing when he put the pharmaceutical industry on notice and announced on 22 November to “change the rules of the game” to tackle, what he called “absurd” medicines pricing. Continue reading ->


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World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Tedros) admonished member states at the close of this week’s special session of the WHO Executive Board charged with examining the agency’s draft work programme for 2019-2023. A trust deficit among member states leads to the multiplication of national statements, impeding efficiency, he said. Meanwhile, a number of countries called for affordable and accessible medicines, and help to manufacture generic medicines locally, while the United States pushed the role of the private sector.  Continue reading ->


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World Health Organization member states’ first reactions to the secretariat-proposed draft work programme for the next five years were mixed this morning. Although many praised the effort and the vision of the programme of work, in particular its alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, a number of countries found the programme ambitious without the needed financial backing, and sometimes straying from the core function of the organisation. Continue reading ->