Slides from the KEI testimony at July 18, 2017 FDA hearing on drug pricing
Attached are the slides I used in today’s FDA hearing on the Hatch-Waxman Act and drug pricing. (link to PDF version of slides) Continue Reading
NAFTA negotiating objectives released by USTR
This afternoon USTR published a summary of the negotiating objectives for NAFTA. A press release is here. The summary report is here.
The intellectual property objectives include this welcome statement, which reflects positions taken in the past by USTR, but it not something we took for granted in the Trump Administration, and we are happy to see it.
KEI response to Sanofi letter to Senators who asked Army for hearing on Zika vaccine license
Last week, Sanofi sent a letter to six U.S. Senators. (Copies here). We responded today. Our letter is attached here.
Some news reports about the Sanofi letter.
- Ed Silverman, Sanofi denies rejecting Army request for a fair price on a Zika vaccine, Statnews, 17 July 2017
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:
German Federal Supreme Court Affirms Compulsory License on HIV Drug
On July 11, 2017, the German Federal Supreme Court announced that it had affirmed the decision of the Federal Patent Court last year to issue a compulsory license allowing Merck to continue selling its HIV drug, raltegravir (marketed as Isentress).
SCP26 – Agreement reached on future work reached at WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (6 July 2017)
On Thursday afternoon, 6 July 2017, the 26th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP), chaired by Ms. Bucura Ionescu (Romania) reached agreement on future work on the following issues: i) Exceptions and Limitations to Patent Rights, ii) Quality of Patents, including Opposition Systems, iii) Patents and Health, iv) Confidentiality of Communications between Clients and Their Patent Advisors and v) Transfer of Technology. Continue Reading
2017: Senator Angus King amendment to National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on federally funded drugs, vaccines
Senator Angus King proposed an amendment to National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would require the Department of Defense (DoD) to authorize third parties to use inventions that benefited from DoD research funding, when prices exceed the median price charge in the seven largest economies with per capita incomes at least half the per capita income in the United States.
WIPO SCP 26 KEI Side Event: Running royalties as remedy to continued infringement of patents, with an emphasis on United States
Today at WIPO, KEI hosted a side event to discuss the ability of countries to deny injunctions in patent infringement cases.
SCP26: Statement of Knowledge Ecology International on Patents and Health (July 4th, 2017)
On July 4th, 2017, Andrew Goldman delivered Knowledge Ecology International’s intervention on patents at health at the 26th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP).
KEI Statement on Patents and Health
WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents – 26th SessionJuly 4th, 2017
Since the African Group and Development Agenda Group first tabled their proposal on a work program on patents and health in May 2011, much has happened.
Groups, individuals write to Senator Wyden, appalled at pressure on India over drug patents
On June 23, 2017, Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representatives Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Richard Neal (D-MA) wrote to President Trump about “trade and investment barriers” in India. The four members of Congress are respectively the chair and ranking members of the Senate Finance and the House Ways and Means Committee.