This was the KEI submission to the OECD consultation on “Sustainable access to innovative therapies,” which involved four questions posed by OECD on access to medicines.
Question 1: Reflecting on the last 5-10 years, what do you think have been the major changes affecting access to medicines?
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On March 21, 2017, the New York Times published a letter signed by Dr. Elias Zerhouni, defending the proposed Sanofi monopoly on the US Army patents to the Zika virus. The letter is available from the NYT from the following link, and also reprinted here, followed by commentary.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/opinion/developing-a-zika-vaccine.html
To the Editor:
Re “Trump Should Avoid a Bad Zika Deal” (Op-Ed, March 11):
On March 20, 2017, the Maryland House of Delegates approved a prescription drug price gouging bill by a vote of 137-4. A copy of the bill, as it passed the House, is attached.
This is a March 20, 2017 Report by Erin Cox, published in the Baltimore Sun:
Maryland’s attorney general could sue drug companies for price gouging under a bill approved by the House of Delegates Monday.
Attached is a March 15, 2017 note by Switzerland on the India EFTA TEPA IP Chapter.
The EFTA is the The European Free Trade Association. The EFTA member states are Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. The document refers to a proposed “Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement,” or TEPA, between India and the four members of the EFTA. The EFTA page on this negotiation is here.
Today I attended a work session of the Maryland House of Delegates subcommittee on Health Facilitates and Pharmaceuticals of the Health and Government Operations Committee. I was there to testify in support of HB 666, a bill titled: Public Health – Expensive Drugs – Manufacturer Reporting and Drug Price Transparency Advisory Committee. (PDF version here).
February 15, 2017, the USPTO ruled that 12 genome-editing CRISPR-Cas9 patents and one patent application assigned to the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT did not interfere with a patent application from scientists at the University of California. A copy of the ruling is available here.
Following the ruling by the USPTO that the Broad Institute and the University of California both issued statements, as did several firms with an interest in the dispute.
Bayh-Dole Act and difference between March-In Rights and the world wide royalty free rights in patents KEI Briefing Note 2017:1 When the United States federal government funds research that results in patents, it obtains rights, either directly or through contracts,… Continue Reading
KEI has asked the DHHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) to investigate a failure to disclose federal funding of patents on nusinersen, a drug developed by Ionis Pharmaceuticals (formerly known as Isis Pharmacetuicals) with BioGen, and sold under the trade name Spinraza.
A copy of the 22 page letter to OIG is available here.