As part of the American University hosted Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the public Interest, I participated in a panel on the positive agenda for intellectual property. These are notes from my talk.
Presentation by Manon Anne Ress, Knowledge Ecology International
August 26, 2011, at American University in Washington, DC
John L. LaMattina, the former President of Pfizer Global Research and Development, has just published an article in Nature that looks at the impact of drug company mergers and increased industry concentration on R&D. Among his conclusions: the “impact on the R&D of the organizations involved has been devastating.”
http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v10/n8/full/nrd3514.html
COMMENT
NATURE REVIEWS | DRUG DISCOVERY VOLUME 10 | AUGUST 2011 | 559
The impact of mergers on pharmaceutical R&D
AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAP) serve low-income, underinsured or uninsured HIV-positive patients in the United States and its territories. General eligibility requirements may include residency, clinical eligibility based on specific CD4 counts, and income. Specific eligibility criteria for each ADAP is determined by each individual state. Continue Reading
The number of patients sitting on AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAP) wait lists, denied the life-saving treatment they need, have risen dramatically over the past two years. ADAPs are critical in providing HIV/AIDS treatment to low-income, uninsured, or underinsured patients within the United States and its territories. As noted in an earlier KEI blog, in January 2010, 361 individuals were on ADAP waitlists; that number grew to 7,873 across eleven states as of May 5, 2011 (a 2100% increase over less than sixteen months).
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):
In the first seven months of 2011 (January 14 to July 20) , the US FDA has already approved 18 new molecular entity drugs. These are some notes on the approvals:
It has been estimated that 1 out of every 8 women in the United States will develop invasive breast cancer during her lifetime. Although a diagnostic test exists to identify mutations on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 human genes, two genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer, many women are not afforded the opportunity to have testing done because Myriad Genetics holds exclusive rights over these genes. Continue Reading
The WIPO General Assembly meets from Monday, 26 September 2011 to Wednesday, 5 October 2011 and will take place at the International Conference Center Geneva (CICG), 17 rue de Varembé, 1211, Geneva.
The tentative schedule for 49th session of the WIPO General Assembly can be found here: http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/govbody/en/a_49/a_49_1_prov_2.pdf.
On 12 July 2011, the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and Gilead announced an agreement for Gilead to license patents for tenofovir (TDF), emtricitabine (FTC), elvitegravir (EVG), cobisistat (COBI) and a four drug combination of these drugs. KEI’s initial comments on the agreement are available here. Continue Reading
After ten years of deliberations, the 19th session (18-22 July 2011) of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC/GRTKF) submitted a Decision for approval to the WIPO General Assembly (26 September-5 October 2011) that could pave the way for the General Assembly in 2012 to convene a Diplomatic Conference on an international legal instrument(s) for the protection of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions (TCEs).