9 November 2016 – WTO TRIPS Council – India’s intervention on the Report of the UN High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines

Posted on by Thiru

On Wednesday, 9 November 2016, India delivered the following statement at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) TRIPS Council’s discussions of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High Level Panel Report on Access to Medicines.

Agenda item 13: the United Nations Secretary-General’s High Level Panel Report on Access to Medicines

Statement by India.

Thank you Chairman.

At the outset, I would like to thank delegations of Brazil, China and South Africa who are also co-sponsors of this agenda item.

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9 November 2016 – WTO TRIPS Council – WHO’s intervention on the Report of the UN High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines

Posted on by Thiru

On Wednesday, 9 November 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) delivered the following statement at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) TRIPS Council’s discussions of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High Level Panel Report on Access to Medicines.

COUNCIL FOR TRIPS

8-9 NOVEMBER 2016

WHO STATEMENT

13. THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL’S HIGH LEVEL PANEL REPORT ON ACCESS TO MEDICINES

Thank you very much for giving WHO the opportunity to share our feedback on the Report of the High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines.

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9 November 2016 – WTO TRIPS Council – Brazil’s intervention on the Report of the UN High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines

Posted on by Thiru

On 9 November 2016, the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) TRIPS Council held discussions on the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel Report on Access to Medicines (UN HLP). These timely WTO discussions on the UN HLP germinated from a 27 October 2016 request by Brazil, China, India and South Africa requesting the WTO Secretariat to place a dedicated agenda item for consideration at the 8-9 November 2016 session of the TRIPS Council entitled “the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel Report on Access to Medicines.”

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Lancet Commission on Essential Medicines Policies publishes 74 page report, endorses delinkage of R&D costs from drug prices

Posted on by James Love

Today The Lancet Commission on Essential Medicines Policies published the 74 page report on “Essential Medicines for Universal Health Coverage.” A copy is available here.

The report is rich in data, analysis and recommendations. The report endorses the delinking of R&D costs from drug prices:

Delinking R&D costs from the price of medicines

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Some measures that a new President and/or Congress can take to lower drug prices in the near term

Posted on by James Love

KEI and others working in the drug pricing space are frequently asked about measures that a new President or Congress can take to lower drug prices, in the relatively near term. The following is a list of such actions, including some that would require legislation and some that would not.

A comprehensive list of possible actions would be much longer, and this is not such a list. Our list does not include suggestions from several other groups working on drug pricing that deserve consideration, and there is nothing at this point on price spikes.

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WTO TRIPS Council – Brazil, China, India and South Africa request discussion of the UN High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines

Posted on by Staff

On Thursday, 27 October 2016, Brazil, China, India and South Africa submitted a communication (IP/C/W/619) to the World Trade Organization (WTO) requesting the WTO Secretariat to “place a dedicated agenda item for consideration at the 8-9 November 2016 session of the TRIPS Council entitled “the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel Report on Access to Medicines.” In the WTO submission, Brazil, China, India and South Africa enclosed the entire Final Report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Continue Reading →

HIV revenues and industry investments in clinical trials for HIV

Posted on by James Love

According to IMS, the global market for HIV antiviral drugs was $24.4 billion in 2015. Over the past three decades, drug companies have registered an average of one new molecular entity HIV ARV per year. This is a lot of money to spend on HIV drugs to induce just one new drug per year.

Today I took a look at data from the NIH clinicaltrials.gov database, to see what the industry was reporting in terms of trials.

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Relative prices of brand and generic drugs

Posted on by James Love

Part 1, and the GPhA report on cost savings from generics, and prices of generics relative to brand in 2015.

The US based Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA) has issued its 8th annual survey of cost savings due to generic medicines. (Copy here). The data they present comes from QuintilesIMS Institute.

The leading shout-out from the report is that generic drugs saved U.S. consumers and third party payers $227 billion in 2015.

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Washington Monthly Cover Story Highlights Petition to Lower Price of Xtandi in U.S.

Posted on by KEI Staff

xtandi-cover-story.jpg

The November/December edition of the Washington Monthly cover story (available here) addresses executive actions to lower drug prices in the United States, in particular the use of march-in rights or royalty-free license rights in the Bayh-Dole Act. The story uses the case of Xtandi, a taxpayer-funded prostate cancer drug developed at UCLA with support from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Army, to highlight how those rights can be used by the executive branch to the lower the price of the drug. For more on Xtandi, see here: /xtandi. Continue Reading →

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