Author: KEI Staff

Experts, NGOs ask WHA delegates to support feasibility study of funding cancer research without high prices

Posted on by KEI Staff

On May 3, 2017, 29 civil society organizations and 33 health professionals, activists, and economists — including Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz — asked delegates to the World Health Assembly (WHA) to support a feasibility study on the progressive delinkage of the costs of research and development from the price of cancer medicines. The groups and experts sent a letter to the delegates.

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U.S. Army Rejects Pricing Concerns in Grant of Exclusive Patent License to Sanofi on Zika Vaccine

Posted on by KEI Staff

Today, KEI received a letter from the U.S. Army dated April 21, 2017, signed by Barry M. Datlof, in which the Army largely rejected concerns raised in comments submitted by KEI and various other public interest groups related to the proposed grant of an exclusive license to the French drug company Sanofi on a U.S. Army-invented vaccine for Zika virus.
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Washington Monthly Cover Story Highlights Petition to Lower Price of Xtandi in U.S.

Posted on by KEI Staff

xtandi-cover-story.jpg

The November/December edition of the Washington Monthly cover story (available here) addresses executive actions to lower drug prices in the United States, in particular the use of march-in rights or royalty-free license rights in the Bayh-Dole Act. The story uses the case of Xtandi, a taxpayer-funded prostate cancer drug developed at UCLA with support from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Army, to highlight how those rights can be used by the executive branch to the lower the price of the drug. For more on Xtandi, see here: /xtandi. Continue Reading →

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WIPO General Assembly 2016: Opening Statement of Knowledge Ecology International

Posted on by KEI Staff

On October 4th, 2016, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) delivered this opening statement on the occasion of the Fifty-Sixth Series of Meetings of the Assemblies of the Member States of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).


KEI General Statement – WIPO General Assembly – 2016

October 4th, 2016

Thank you Chair for providing Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) the opportunity to speak today.

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KEI Statement on United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines Report

Posted on by KEI Staff

On September 14, 2016, the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines issued its long-awaited report, which addressed the policy incoherencies between intellectual property, trade, human rights, innovation, and public health.

The report is available here: http://www.unsgaccessmeds.org/final-report/
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NIH to taxpayers — we don’t care about high prices in US for Xtandi

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National Institutes of Health Declines to Exercise Authority to Lower Xtandi Price
The National Institutes of Health will not use its rights under the Bayh-Dole Act to end the monopoly on the expensive prostate cancer drug Xtandi and allow low-priced generic versions to compete on the market.
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