Knowledge Ecology International

Dr. S. Ward Casscells took the stage at the 2011 Innovative Minds in Prostate Cancer Today (IMPaCT) Meeting as a prostate cancer patient, a doctor, an Army Reserve colonel, and the former top doctor for the Pentagon. There, he praised the central role of the Department of Defense in bringing important prostate cancer medicines to market, including Xtandi (referred to by its experimental name, MDV3100), an expensive prostate cancer drug that was funded from basic research through phase I and II clinical trials by taxpayer and charitable funds. Continue Reading →

Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria issued a declaration that it would be in the public interest for the government to lower the price of Novartis’ expensive leukemia drug, Gleevec (imatinib).

CONTACT: Andrew Goldman, +1 (202) 332-2670 or andrew.goldman@keionline.org

The following individuals are also available for comment:

• Andrea Carolina Reyes Rojas, Misión Salud: subdireccion@mision-salud.org
• Dr. Francisco Rossi, IFARMA: francisco_rossi@hotmail.com

Washington, DC, June 17, 2016 — Colombian Minister of Health Alejandro Gaviria today issued Resolution 2475 of 2016, declaring that it would be in the public interest for the government of Colombia to lower the price of an expensive leukemia drug. The Ministry of Health describes this resolution as unprecedented in Colombia.

The drug, imatinib, is marketed as Glivec in Colombia by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis at a price of approximately $15,000 per patient per year, nearly twice the average income of a Colombian resident. Glivec has generated over $47 billion in global revenue for Novartis. Continue Reading →

More on this dispute at /colombia

In response to the recent announcement from Colombia’s Ministry of Health that a public interest declaration regarding imatinib will be issued in a matter of days, Novartis issued a statement that criticized the forthcoming action, saying, “We have consistently said that Declarations of Public Interest can be important and legitimate tools to be used only in exceptional circumstances,” and saying “this is simply not the case in Colombia.” Continue Reading →

David Hirschmann, US Chamber, claims efforts to curb high prices for cancer drugs are “a destructive course.”

The US Chamber of Commerce might consider renaming itself the US/Swiss Chamber of Commerce, after their most recent attack on the Colombia Minister of Health (MoH) announcement that a “Declaration of Public Interest” would be issued for the patents on the cancer drug imatinib, held by the Swiss company Novartis. In the US Chamber’s defense of the Swiss drug company, they don’t mention the fact that Novartis has earned about $48 billion from sales of imatinib (sold by Novartis under the brand names Gleevec or Glivec) since the drug was put on the market, including more than $380 million per month in 2015. Continue Reading →

Alfred Engelberg and Aaron Kesselheim have published an opinion article in Nature titled:

“Use the Bayh-Dole Act to lower drug prices for government healthcare programs,” Nature Medicine 22, 576 (2016) doi:10.1038/nm0616-576, Published online 07 June 2016.
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v22/n6/abs/nm0616-576.html

Continue Reading →

On May 24th, 2016 the NIH posted a notice on the Federal Register stating it is contemplating the grant of an exclusive license to Dimension Therapeutics, Inc. for the development of an Adeno-Associated Virus Vectors for the Treatment of Glycogen… Continue Reading →