2017: VeriLuce license of patents for pancreatic cancer treatment

(More on government funded inventions here. Other KEI comments on NIH licenses are found here.) On July 10, 2017, the NIH issued a notice on “Prospective Grant of Exclusive Patent License: Composition and Methods for Delivering Inhibitory Oligonucleotides for the Treatment of… Continue Reading

KEI comments at July 25, 2017 civil society stakeholder forum at the 19th round of the RCEP negotiation

These are the notes I used when providing the KEI comments at the July 25, 2017 civil society stakeholder forum at the 19th round of the RCEP negotiation.

My name is James Love. I work for Knowledge Ecology International, an NGO that focuses on the social aspects to the production, management and control of knowledge goods. I am also a member of the board of directors of the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment.

The IP Chapter is complex, and in the time allocated, I will discuss five issues.

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KEI and Médecins Sans Frontières propose contractual terms to protect access and affordability of Zika vaccine

25 July 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Kim Treanor, kim.treanor@keionline.org or +1 (202) 332-2670

Washington, 25 July 2017 – Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have sent a letter today to the Command Judge Advocate of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), recommending two specific contractual terms for the proposed license of the US Army’s Zika vaccine technology to Sanofi Pasteur.

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2017: NantBioScience – Commercial Application and Use of Fulvestrant in Combination Therapy for the Treatment of Cancers

(More on government funded inventions here. Other KEI comments on NIH licenses are found here.) In 2016, the NIH signed a CRADA with NantBioScience, a company lead by Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD. to develop “Further Develop Recombinant NK Cells and Monoclonal Antibodies as… Continue Reading

House Appropriations rejects Kaptur amendment (allow competition for gov funded drugs if prices higher than reference countries)

On 19 July 2017, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) introduced an amendment at the markup in the U.S. House Appropriations Committee of the FY2018 State and Foreign Operations, Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations bill that would direct the Department of Health and Human Services to use its authority to break patent monopolies for government-funded inventions priced higher in the U.S. than seven other high-income countries.

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Senate Armed Services Committee directive on use of Bayh-Dole rights for DoD funded drugs

The report of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the National Defense Authorization Act of 2018, S. 1519, published July 10, 2017, includes a directive that links exclusive patent rights to the prices of drugs, vaccines and other medical technologies that are based upon DoD-funded inventions.

The text of the directive, approved unanimously by the full Senate Armed Services Committee, is as follows:

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