A Summary Of Key IP-Related Actions Taken By The 70th World Health Assembly31/05/2017 by Catherine Saez and Elise De Geyter for Intellectual Property Watch 1 CommentAfter what was described as the biggest World Health Assembly ever, with the highest number of agenda items and the highest attendance, it seemed that all’s well that ends well at the closing ceremony earlier today. A notable fact during this assembly has been the rising volume of voices from developing countries, joined by developed countries on issues related to access to affordable, safe, and efficacious medicines. Resolutions and decisions were adopted, many with hopes of better addressing challenges such as antimicrobial resistance, cancer, substandard and falsified medical products, medicines access and shortages and more.
WHO Asked To Square Its Position On Herbicide; EU Evaluation Seen As Flawed31/05/2017 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a CommentDoes glyphosate, better known under its brand name RoundUp, increase the risk of cancer in humans, or not? Yesterday, some World Health Organization members, while hailing a draft resolution on cancer later adopted, underlined a lack of coordination on glysophate between the WHO and its agency for cancer research. Separately, a renowned scientist sent a letter to European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, saying the evaluations on the herbicide are flawed, and should be done again to safeguard public health.
Resolution On Cancer Hailed By WHO Members, Easily Adopted In Committee31/05/2017 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch 1 CommentIt is not a mystery, cancer has been spreading for decades, in particular in low and-middle income countries, and is not stopping its course in the foreseeable future. Members of the World Health Organization in committee yesterday adopted a resolution to improve prevention, diagnostics, treatment, and palliative care for cancer, in statements stripped of controversy.
US Supreme Court Adopts International Exhaustion For Patents: Paving the way for parallel imports to exert downward pressure on domestic pharmaceutical (and other) prices31/05/2017 by Intellectual Property Watch 1 CommentThe Supreme Court of the United States on May 30, 2017 adopted a rule of international exhaustion of patent rights for the United States in Impression Products v. Lexmark International, No. 15-1189. The near-unanimous decision authored by Chief Justice Roberts is unambiguous and unequivocal.[1] The Court paid short shrift to contrary decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Jazz Photo Corp. v. International Trade Commission, 264 F. 3d 1094 (Fed. Cir. 2001) and in this case on certiorari, Lexmark International v. Impression Products, 816 F.3d 721 (Fed. Cir. 2016).In addition to adopting international exhaustion, the Supreme Court ruled firmly against enforcement of post-sale restrictions through infringement actions based on patent. The Court allowed for enforcement under contract law of limitations that may be included in patent licenses.
WHA Committee Bans IP Reference In Substandard And Falsified Medicines30/05/2017 by Elise De Geyter for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a CommentThe “delicious acronym SSFFC” – as described by Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director-general for Health Systems and Innovation at the World Health Organization – will no longer be used by WHO to describe substandard and fake medical products, when a committee’s decision is adopted by the full World Health Assembly tomorrow. And key to this decision is that protection of intellectual property rights is not a competence of the UN health agency.
Challenges Remain For Worldwide Immunization By Vaccination30/05/2017 by Elise De Geyter for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a CommentEven though important milestones in the elimination of rubella and measles have been achieved worldwide, key challenges remain, presenters said during a technical briefing organised by the World Health Organization last week.
Cancer Drugs: Innovation ‘Blackmail’ Leads To Unaffordable Prices, Delinkage Needed, Speakers Say30/05/2017 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch 2 CommentsWhat if you get an aggressive form of breast cancer, and the treatment exists but it is too expensive for you to get? You die. Tragic stories and the possibilities to avert them were centre stage at a panel last week on the margin of the ongoing World Health Assembly. Delinking the cost of research and development from the market prices of medicines was urged by speakers on the panel: representatives of cancer patients, civil society, and the Brazilian deputy ambassador.
More Than 60 Groups, Companies Urge EU To Step Up Copyright Reform29/05/2017 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a CommentA range of civil society groups and companies today urged the European Union to embrace a more ambitious agenda for reform of the Union’s copyright law.
Health R&D Still Underfunded – WHO Members Concerned, NGOs Call For More Ambition29/05/2017 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a CommentHopes of stimulating research and development for diseases affecting primarily poor countries and vulnerable populations, through a strategic work plan at the World Health Organization, are dimmed by the lack of funding. An R&D project on a single-dose malaria cure had to be cut short, while a global observatory for health research and development, recently launched, might be hampered in its progress, according to officials.
Global Health R&D: Evidence, Priorities, Coordination29/05/2017 by Mara Pillinger for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a CommentWorld Health Assembly Agenda Item 13.5 is descriptively-yet-uninformatively labelled “Follow-up of the report of the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG).” But that anodyne title actually masks an important milestone in the World Health Organization’s long-running efforts to increase R&D around neglected diseases and diseases of poverty.
