On Wednesday, 24 January 2024, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) delivered the following statement on the Follow-up to the political declaration of the third high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases.
The innovation for new treatments for cancer and rare diseases has been impressive, but access is generally assumed to be very unequal.
The statistical evidence of access disparities is often incomplete, missing, or poorly organized.
The WHO should provide the 77th WHA with a report on measures that could be undertaken to systematically monitor and report on access to new drugs, vaccines, and cell and gene therapies for the treatment of cancer and rare diseases.
This report could include the implementation of WHA72.8 on transparency, as regards reporting the units of products sold by country.
WHO should also provide technical assistance on the ability of member states to create exceptions to patent rights for treatments that can be classified as services, such as autologous CAR-T.