At the WIPO Conference on Intellectual Property and Public Policy Issues today, Margaret Chan, the Director General of the World Health Organization, made the following speech at WIPO’s Conference on Intellectual Property and Public Policy Issues on the topic of “Strengthening Multilateral Cooperation on IP and Public Health” where she shared the limelight with Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organ

Pope Benedict XVI today issued a statement saying that “On the part of rich countries, there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care.” The criticism came in a section of his most recent encyclical letter dealing with social issues, and specifically focusing on international human development and systemic failures of bodies large and small to solve development problems.

February 19, 2009

Press Advisory on NGO letters to WHO and WTO on topic of Dutch seizures of generic medicines in-transit from India to Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

In response to news about four seizures of generic medicines manufactured in India and shipped through the Netherlands in route to Brazil, Colombia and Peru, sixteen public health, consumer and development NGOs have sent separate letters to the heads of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Today I am at Harvard, attending a workshop titled: Unbranding Medicines: the politics, promise, and challenge of generic drugs. This is put on by the Harvard Interfaculty Initiative on Medicines and Society. The program in general is quite impressive, particularly as regards to the depth of experience and knowledge about the generic drug industry, including its early origins.

I was asked to speak about the use of prizes. The slides from my presentation are here: