This was the 3,500 word statement of Senator Bernie Sanders during Senate HELP committee markup of the PDUFA legislation. The statement covers a lot of ground, and illustrates why consumer groups love Bernie Sanders, while making one wonder why other Senators have not been more supportive of the consumer protection issues that Sanders discusses. Here are some highlights:
The proposal for a new extended monopoly for antibiotics and antifungal drugs is a “huge giveaway” that will lead to high prices and harm consumers.
“Roma locuta causa finita est” (Rome has spoken, therefore the case has been decided) was the maxim employed by medieval jurists to describe the absolute irrevocability of papal judgements in canon law. Today, in modern international trade law, the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Appellate Body fulfills a similar function as the international trading system’s “Supreme Court”. In the words of the WTO,
[t]he Appellate Body was established in 1995 under Article 17 of the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU). Continue Reading →
The WHO’s Consultative Expert Working Group (CEWG) on R&D proposal for a new WHO Convention on health R&D has been widely praised by public health groups (See https://www.keionline.org/node/1399). The CEWG proposal for a treaty has also, at least so far, avoided much criticism from the pharmaceutical industry, even though it strongly embraces the notion of delinkage of R&D costs from product prices, open innovation, and technology transfer and capacity building in developing countries. Continue Reading →
On Thursday, 5 April 2012, the World Health Organization released the report of the Report of the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination entitled “Research and Development to Meet Health Needs in Developing Countries: Strengthening Global Financing and Coordination”. The 218 page report will take some time to fully assess.
The report can be found here: http://www.who.int/phi/CEWG_Report_5_April_2012.pdf
On March 12, 2012, Tedmund Wan posted a note on Joe Biden’s appointment of Steve Ricchetti, exploring potential conflicts of interest with the clients in a lobbying firm that he ran. On March 29, 2012, KEI formally asked Ricchetti to recuse himself in matters concerning his former clients. The letter follows.
29 March 2012
Steve Ricchetti
Counselor to Vice President Joe Biden
The White House Continue Reading →
This week WIPO and the Library of Congress are holding a week long symposium on International Copyright, with title:
Emerging Issues in Copyright and Related Rights for Developing
Countries and Countries with Economies in Transition
organized by
the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
in cooperation with
the United States Copyright Office, Library of Congress
Washington D.C., March 19 to 23, 2012
Sally Susman of Pfizer leads the most lethal lobbying effort on drug patents and prices. She’s also a big Obama campaign fundraiser.
For several years, Pfizer has been considered a hardliner among big pharma companies on international negotiations over intellectual property rights and drug pricing. This has not changed despite the company having had three CEOs in the past five years.
This annotated bibliography of (mostly scholarly and technical) articles and books on innovation prizes is a work on progress. In the past few years, there has been an explosion of research on innovation inducement prizes, much of which has yet to be added to this list. People who want to suggest citations, annotations or corrections can send a note to james.love@keionline.org. More on prizes here: /prizes
On March 12, 2012, Steve Ricchetti began his new job as a high level policy adviser to Vice President Biden. Steve Ricchetti is a former registered lobbyist, who de-listed as a registered lobbyist but remained the president of a lobbying firm until taking his new job in the White House.
The India Controller General Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks has just (March 12, 2012) issued an order granting a compulsory license to patents on the cancer drug sorafenib/Nexavar, in the matter of NATCO Vs. BAYER. A copy of the decision is attached below.
