The tenth session of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Advisory Committee on Enforcement (ACE) meets from Monday, 23 November 2015 to Wednesday, 25 November 2015.
As noted by WIPO, the
Advisory Committee on Enforcement (ACE) was established by the 2002 WIPO General Assemblies with a mandate to carry out technical assistance and coordination in the field of enforcement (norm-setting is explicitly excluded from the mandate).
This is the tentative witness list for the November 17, 2015 United States International Trade Commission (USITC) hearing on “Economic Impact of Trade Agreements Implemented Under Trade Authorities Procedure, 2016 Report. Inv. No.: 332-555”
The August 4, 2015 USITC notice about the hearing is here.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan addressed civil society and policy-oriented “think tanks” on November 12, 2015, and “challenge[d]” them to “help with issues that keep me awake at night.” Specifically, she mentioned the problems with pharmaceutical patents, high drug prices as a barrier to access, and the current system of incentives for new drug innovation. Dr. Chan also raised concerns about the the TPP, which she said may raise drug prices and harm access to generics.
For Immediate Release
3 November 2015
Contact: Zack Struver, +1 (202) 332-2670 or zack.struver@keionline.org
Geneva — The World Trade Organization is poised to announce this Friday its approval of a limited 17-year extension of a 2001 waiver of obligations in the TRIPS Agreement, set to expire at the end of this year, the terms of which exempt Least Developed Countries (LDCs) from requirements to grant patents or related intellectual property rights on pharmaceutical products.
On October 23, 2015, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health hosted a forum titled “Drug Pricing: Public Health Implications,” that was moderated by Caroline Humer, a Reuters healthcare correspondent. The forum featured a panel of four individuals who work on drug pricing:
Steven Pearson, President of the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School
The concept of delinkage refers to an model of incentivizing innovation in pharmaceutical research and development wherein the price of a medical technology is not linked to the cost of R&D. The application of delinkage in the medical technologies market has been gaining broad based support from NGOs, IGOs, and governments. Below are a selection of public statements, resolutions, bills, and papers that call for the need for delinkage in ensuring global access to medicines.
I was recently asked by OSF to write a two page document that described “what was wrong with the current system of funding R&D?” and to offer some “important ideas for change.” This was my two page submission.
What is wrong with the current system for funding R&D? What are the most important ideas for change?
(In two pages, for OSF meeting on drug development)
James Love
October 20, 2015
1. What is wrong with the current system for funding R&D?
On Tuesday October 20, 2015, Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA), one of the principal authors of the Biologic Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA), sent a letter to the United States Trade Representative requesting timely clarification regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s impact “on existing U.S. laws that limit damages for infringement of intellectual property (IP) rights, and on the potential ISDS ramifications for those conflicts.”
On the left, the people in the Obama Administration trying to block a permanent waiver of WTO drug patent obligations for Least Developed Countries (as defined by the UN). On the right, some people living in least developed countries.
Ambassador Michael Forman. Head of USTR. Alma maters: Princeton, Oxford and Harvard Law. Formerly ran a hedge fund for Citibank. Continue Reading →
