Unbranding Medicines — Harvard workshop on generics

Today I am at Harvard, attending a workshop titled: Unbranding Medicines: the politics, promise, and challenge of generic drugs. This is put on by the Harvard Interfaculty Initiative on Medicines and Society. The program in general is quite impressive, particularly as regards to the depth of experience and knowledge about the generic drug industry, including its early origins.

I was asked to speak about the use of prizes. The slides from my presentation are here:

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DCOS Agreement on Procurement in Support of Interoperability and Open Standards emerges at 3rd IGF, Hyderabad

6 December 2008

At the close of the final day of the 3rd Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, India, the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS) released an agreement entitled the “Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS) Agreement on Procurement in Support of Interoperability and Open Standards.”

Under the procurement agreement, governments, publicly funded and non-profit institutions agree to promote interoperability and accessibility through the use of open standards.

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Update on DCOS events at IGF, Hyderabad

The Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS) convened two events during the first two days of the Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, India (3-6 Dec 2008).

Workshop 21 : “Knowledge as a Global Public Good: How Fair Use, Open Source and ICT Standards Can Expand Digital Inclusion”
4:30-6:00pm, December 3, Room 5

Moderator: Malini Aisola, Knowledge Ecology International
Speakers:

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HIF proposes $600 million annual budget to evaluate health impacts

One feature of the HIF that is raising eyebrows is their proposal to
spend $600 million *per year* on assessing health impacts. This is
apparently more than an order of magnitude greater than the entire
budget of NICE. The reference to the $600 million from the HIF book
follows:

Aidan Hollis and Thomas Pogge, The Health Impact Fund, Making New

Medicines Accessible for All, A Report of Incentives for Global Health,
2008

Page 30-32

THE COST OF HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT

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Blogging the Washington DC HIF presentation

Yesterday December 1 2008, professors Aidan Hollis and Thomas Pogge presented their Health Impact Fund (HIF) proposal at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

The meeting convened and moderated by the President of Georgetown University, Jack deGioia, was attended by 50/60 people and was structured with two presentations by the co-authors and a panel discussion by :

Paul Antony, M.D., Chief Medical Officer and Executive Director, PhRMA
Lawrence Gostin, J.D., Associate Dean and Timothy and Linda O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center
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