Dr. Elias Zerhouni defends Sanofi/Army proposed license on Zika patents, and KEI responds

On March 21, 2017, the New York Times published a letter signed by Dr. Elias Zerhouni, defending the proposed Sanofi monopoly on the US Army patents to the Zika virus. The letter is available from the NYT from the following link, and also reprinted here, followed by commentary.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/opinion/developing-a-zika-vaccine.html

To the Editor:

Re “Trump Should Avoid a Bad Zika Deal” (Op-Ed, March 11):

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Maryland House of Delegates passes bill on prescription drug price gouging by vote of 137 to 4

On March 20, 2017, the Maryland House of Delegates approved a prescription drug price gouging bill by a vote of 137-4. A copy of the bill, as it passed the House, is attached.

This is a March 20, 2017 Report by Erin Cox, published in the Baltimore Sun:

Maryland’s attorney general could sue drug companies for price gouging under a bill approved by the House of Delegates Monday.

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Leaked document: March 15, 2017 Note by Switzerland on India EFTA TEPA IP Chapter

Attached is a March 15, 2017 note by Switzerland on the India EFTA TEPA IP Chapter.

The EFTA is the The European Free Trade Association. The EFTA member states are Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. The document refers to a proposed “Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement,” or TEPA, between India and the four members of the EFTA. The EFTA page on this negotiation is here.

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Patients, Members of Congress Ask Chilean Government to Issue Compulsory Licenses on Prostate Cancer and HCV Drug Patents

21 MARCH 2017
PRESS ADVISORY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Zack Struver, zack.struver@keionline.org, +1 (202) 332-2670 (office) / +1 (914) 582-1428 (cell)
Luis Villarroel, info@innovarte.cl, +56 9 9827 9673

Santiago, Chile — Members of the Chilean Congress and a group of 6 patients visited the Chilean Ministry of Health yesterday to ask that the government use its authority under Chilean law to end patent monopolies on the prostate cancer drug enzalutamide (U.S. brand name Xtandi) and on sofosbuvir-based combination drugs for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV).

The patients and members submitted a petition that outlined the legal authority and public policy rationale for the grant of compulsory licenses on the patents for the drugs described in the petition. Those compulsory licenses would allow prescription drug manufacturers to produce affordable generic versions of the drugs, subject to a reasonable royalty.
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14 March 2017 – Senate Finance Committee grills Robert Lighthizer (USTR nominee) on trade and IPR policies

On 14 March 2017, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee held confirmation hearings for Robert Lighthizer, President Donald Trump’s appointee for United States Trade Representative. During the Reagan administration, Lighthizer served as Deputy US Trade Representative with the rank of Ambassador (Source: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=41174). Prior to his tenure as Deputy USTR, from 1981 to 1983, Lighthizer served as Chief Counsel for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. Currently, he is a partner at Skadden Arps. Continue Reading

KEI Testifies in Maryland on Drug R&D Cost Transparency Bill (HB666/SB437)

James Love and Andrew Goldman represented KEI on March 16, 2017, in a working group meeting of a subcommittee of the Maryland General Assembly House of Delegates Health & Government Operations Committee, where they testified on HB666/SB437, a bill that would establish transparency of R&D costs for prescription drugs sold in Maryland.

Vincent DeMarco of at Health Care for All! and Dr. Reshma Ramachandran of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health also testified at the hearing.
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HHS Office of Inspector General Declines to Investigate Failure to Disclose Federal Funding in Ionis Pharmaceuticals’ Spinraza

The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) informed KEI that it would not move forward with an investigation into whether Isis Pharmaceuticals, now known as Ionis Pharmaceuticals, failed to report federal funding in patents on Spinraza.

In a letter dated March 13, 2017, Matthew Charette, the Special Agent in Charge of the Investigations Branch of OIG, explained that OIG counsel believes that OIG has limited authority, and that the obligation to “monitor[] invention reporting and remedy[] noncompliance” “rests with NIH’s Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA).”

On January 18, 2017, KEI submitted a 22-page letter to OIG containing evidence that the patents on Spinraza benefited from federal grants. KEI did not just ask OIG to investigate Isis’ alleged failure to report this funding, in violation of the Bayh-Dole Act and federal regulations, but also urged the OIG “to investigate whether the National Institutes of Health failed to conduct proper oversight in administering its grants” and to “recommend appropriate action to remedy the situation in line with the statute and prior decisions with regard to failure to disclose a subject invention.”
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