Month: April 2016

On April 26, 2016, Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) delivered the keynote address at a panel discussion on drug pricing at the Center for American Progress, where he addressed the Federal government’s role in subsidizing drug development, ensuring affordable access at reasonable prices for U.S. citizens, industry practices related to monopoly pricing, and legislative solutions to promote rational and affordable drug prices.

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The number of patents filed by China has accelerated over the last 15 years. According to WIPO, China represented just 1 percent of the fillings with the PCT in 2000. By 2015, China’s share of PCT filing was 13.7 percent. We were interested to see how this increase in patent fillings related to China’s growth in GDP.

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The 2016 USTR Special 301 report is now available. (copy here). The report is 77 pages of complaints about intellectual property policies around the world, plus a number of other complaints, including those related to pricing and reimbursement of pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices, restrictions on data flows, standard setting, and government procurement.

On the one hand, USTR says it is supports “access to medicine for all.”

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2016:1 KEI Briefing Note
Transparency of Patent Landscapes
April 25, 2016

At an April 12, 2016 WIPO seminar, Reed F. Beall and Amir Attaran presented a paper, “Patent-based Analysis of the World Health Organization’s 2013 Model List of Essential Medicines,” which includes the following odd comment:

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KEI submitted the attached letter to Secretary Burwell and Director Collins in support of the KEI/UACT petition that asked the NIH (or the Army) to use the federal government rights in the patents on the prostate cancer drug Xtandi, to remedy the excessive and discriminatory price in the United States. The letter calls attention to findings of an article from the the Journal of Oncology Pharmacy Practice, in which the authors conclude that a reduction in price would make Xtandi the most-cost effective option.

The text of the letter follows:

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Attached here (in docx format) is the October 15, 2015 version of the draft intellectual property right chapter for the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

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