UPDATE: The World Health Organization has published the COVID-19 response resolution as a conference paper (A73/CONF./1) marked with the date of 18 May 2020. The sponsors of the draft resolution included: Albania, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bhutan, Bolivia (Plurinational State… Continue Reading
May 4, 2020 Comments of Knowledge Ecology International Regarding “Purple Book Enhancement; Establishment of a Public Docket; Request for Comments” (FDA-2020-N-0437) Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) provides the following comments regarding the Food and Drug Administration [FDA]’s Purple Book Enhancement. Our… Continue Reading
Brazil-CL-Pandemics-KEI-10April2020 April 10, 2020 Members of the Brazil Congress It is our understanding that some large drug companies have raised objections to a new compulsory licensing authority for Brazil relating to pandemics. I would like to address the several objections… Continue Reading
Background In 2001, the World Trade Organization (WTO) began negotiations on the rules regarding patents and access to medicine. While several issues were clarified and resolved in the November 2001 “Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health”, the negotiations took… Continue Reading
The following is a letter that KEI and Public Citizen sent to Congressional leadership on March 26, 2020, supporting the proposal by the President of Costa Rica to the World Health Organization to create a pool for rights in technology… Continue Reading
March 27, 2020. We are writing to ask the WHO and its Member States to support the proposal by Costa Rica for the creation of a global pooling mechanism for rights in the data, knowledge and technologies useful in the… Continue Reading
(KEI blogs and other work on COVID-19 are here: https://www.keionline.org/coronavirus) A letter from Costa Rica, signed by Carlos Alarado Quesada, the President, and Dr. Daniel Salas Peraza, the Minister of Health, to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was sent this evening… Continue Reading
Today the FDA granted Gilead Orphan Drug status for remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19, on grounds this is a rare disease. The morning of the designation, the U.S. had confirmed, through testing, more than 35 thousand cases, including 8,477… Continue Reading
For more on KEI’s work on COVID-19, see keonline.org/coronavirus. As the US and other governments begin to expend large amounts of money on research and development related to the control, prevention and treatment of the coronavirus pandemic, there are important… Continue Reading
For more on KEI’s work on COVID-19, see keonline.org/coronavirus. The “Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020’’ will provide welcome funding to deal with the expanding COVID-19 pandemic. The current language on affordability (this Draft text), however, is worse… Continue Reading