2008 May 14 Cable: Poland wants to cap drug cost effectiveness at 3x GDP/pop. Pfizer wants 6x

September 3, 2011 From KEI staff review of Wikileaks cables (/wikileaks) On May 14, 2008, The US Embassy in Warsaw sent a cable that discussed additions to the list of pharmaceutical products reimbursed by the government. A few highlights from… Continue Reading

The Johnson & Johnson Acuvue Compulsory License

In April of 2010, District Judge Timothy J. Corrigan (M.D Florida, Jacksonville division) declined to grant a permanent injunction following a finding that the Johnson & Johnson’s ACUVUE®OASYS contact lens product infringed patents owned by CIBA Vision Corporation, providing another example of, in effect, a judicial compulsory license following the 2006 eBay v. MercExchange case; the judge wrote:

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Approval, ownership, market structure, and placement on WHO EML for 100 new cancer NMEs on NCI alpha list

KEI research associate Paul Miano has written the following paper: Cancer: Approval, ownership, market structure, and placement on WHO Model Essential Medicines List, for 100 new molecular entities (NMEs) on the NCI alpha list of cancer drugs and vaccines. KEI Research Note 2011:1,

A full copy of the paper is available in PDF format here.

The following is from the introduction (sans footnotes, which are in the PDF version):

Introduction and Summary

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Microsoft, Gates Foundation Timeline

November 29, 2010 Revised January 4, 2011 Introduction This timeline contains a number of selected data points concerning Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). The motivations for this timeline, which features entries for both Microsoft and the… Continue Reading

Written submission U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Hearing on Treating Rare and Neglected Pediatric Diseases: Promoting the Development of New Treatments and Cures

Written submission U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Hearing on Treating Rare and Neglected Pediatric Diseases: Promoting the Development of New Treatments and Cures, On the topic of Direct funding, subsidies and incentives for the development… Continue Reading

FOIA document: In 2007, US Ambassador Ralph Boyce was pleased that Abbott withdrew life saving drugs from market in Thailand

In 2007, Thailand was involved in a dispute over the granting of compulsory licenses on medicines, including the patents used for Kaletra, an Abbott drug used in the treatment of AIDS. Kaletra is the brand name for a fixed dose combination of lopinavir and ritonavir (LPV/r) — two drugs invented at Abbott on an NIH grant. In 2007, LPV/r was the preferred combination for protease inhibitor regimes used to treat AIDS. Continue Reading