On Monday, September 15, 2014, Gilead announced licensing agreements with 7 generic drug manufacturers, for two of its HCV drugs, including sofosbuvir, which is currently the most important HCV drug, and the basis for Gilead’s value to shareholders. KEI’s statement from Monday, and links to other NGO comments are here: https://www.keionline.org/node/2082.
Today Gilead announced it will provide seven generic drug manufacturers licenses to make and sell two drugs that are used in combination to treat the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) in 91 developing countries.
Donate to KEI
KEI needs your support. Donations to KEI are tax deductible, under 501(c)(3) of the US IRS code.
In the piece, WIPO General Assembly 2014: Hard Decisions on the Design Law Treaty and Treaty for Protection of Genetic Resources (22 July 2014), KEI highlighted the hard decisions awaiting the WIPO General Assembly (22 September 2014 to 30 September 2014) with respect to the Design Law Treaty, the imminent revision of the Lisbon Agreement to include geographical indications and WIPO’s work to conclude an instrument for the protection of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore. Continue Reading
In a concerted bid to contain the emerging threat posed by antibiotic resistance, in May 2014, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 67th World Health Assembly (WHA) passed WHA resolution 67.25 on “Antimicrobial resistance” instructing the WHO to “develop a global action plan to combat antimicrobial resistance” by May 2015 (Source: WHO page on Draft Global action plan on antimicrobial resistance). Continue Reading
On August 13, 2014, the Republic of South Africa (RSA) Competition Commission (CC) released the redacted versions of the reports provided to the CC by CPTech in 2003 in the TAC competition case involving GSK and Boehringer Ingelheim. A complete… Continue Reading
On 14 January 2013, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), the University of California (San Francisco), Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), Third World Network (TWN) and Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network: YP-CDN submitted a Proposal for the Inclusion of Trastuzumab in the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines for the Treatment of HER2-Positive Breast Cancer to WHO’s Exper Continue Reading
As part of a partial response to FOIA request, USTR has provided KEI with copies of 13 letters sent by members of Congress, from July 27, 2011 to August 8, 2013, on the topic of biologic drug test data provisions in the TPP negotiation. We had obtained several but not all of these letters earlier from a variety of sources, including from PhRMA’s web page — where some had been proudly displayed. (See link below).
Were there letters on the other side? Yes, three. (see below).
With the FOIA request, we have also obtained the responses to the letters.
The Assemblies of the Member States of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) convenes its Fifty-Fourth Series of meetings in Geneva from 22 September 2014 to 30 September 2014. These Assemblies include, inter alia, meetings of the WIPO General Assembly, the WIPO Coordination Committee, the Paris Union Assembly, the Berne Union Assembly, the Madrid Union Assembly, the Lisbon Union Assembly, the Patent Cooperation Treaty Assembly, the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) Assembly and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) Assembly. Continue Reading
To get a quick look at who is holding patents on the Hepatitis C Virus, I did some searches of the USPTO database. In each search, I looked for the term HCV in the field for patent claims (ACLM). Note this is fairly arbitrary, and I get different (and higher) numbers if I include HCV in the Abstract. In any case:
There were 1164 patents that have the term HCV in the patent claim.