On November 13, 2011, the Los Angeles Times published a story by David Willman on a no-bid contract with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to supply the government with a drug for smallpox. The LA Times story begins with this:
Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work.
On October 26, 2011, a bipartisan group of members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced HR 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, known as SOPA. While much of the bill deals with “online” piracy,” some sections of the bill appear to have nothing to do with the Internet. The bill also creates a new bureaucracy to deal with very broadly defined trade related intellectual property rights issues, including those identified in the annual USTR Special 301 report.
How complicated is it to identify the “price” of a drug? This is from an HRSA web page.
http://www.hrsa.gov/opa/glossary.htm
Glossary of Pharmacy-Related Terms
“This glossary is based, in part, on Drug Pricing Glossary and Other Key Terms, prepared by Powers, Pyles, Sutter & Verville PC, and is used with their permission. Parts of this glossary also include definitions obtained from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.”
On 25 October 2011, the WTO TRIPS Council held its annual review of the Paragraph 6 System under Item G. Under the sub-heading of alternatives to the Paragraph 6 system, Ecuador asked the European Union (EU) about the issuance of three compulsory licenses in Italy between 2005 to 2007. In its intervention, Ecuador asked the EU for more detail regarding the Italian Competition Authority’s issuance of compulsory licenses for export to Spain and other EU members in cases involving Glaxo and Merck including, but not limited to, administrative procedures, decision-making processes, and rationale. Continue Reading →
This is the intervention that the United States made on ACTA on 25 October 2011 during the WTO TRIPS Council discussions of “Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights”.
O. ENFORCEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS (PARTY III OF THE TRIPS AGREEMENT)
The United States thanks Japan for its opening remarks, with which we fully associate ourselves.
We appreciate this opportunity to share with colleagues from other WTO Members our views on the importance of enforcement and to provide some additional information on the ACTA.
OCTOBER TRIPS COUNCIL MEETING
October 24-25, 2011
Canada’s Intervention for Agenda Item G (Access to Medicines)
Mr. Chairman, Canada welcomes this opportunity to discuss the implementation of the Paragraph 6 system and to share some thoughts on the issue of access to medicines.
Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante has made public the “priorities and special projects” of the US Copyright Office from October 2011 to October 2013. The ambitious work plan sets 17 priorities in the areas of copyright policy and administrative practices, and 10 special projects “to improve the quality and efficiency of the U.S. Copyright Office’s services.”
The 16 page document is available here
Comments should be sent to registerofcopyrights@copyright.gov
April 29, 2010. Brand name: Provenge
Generic name: Sipuleucel-T
Marketed by: Dendreon
Indication: therapy for certain men with advanced prostate cancer that uses their own immune system to fight the disease.
FDA press release here.
US Price: $31,000 per infusion. A full course of treatment is three infusions over a one-month period, or $93k. Continue Reading →
This note begins by looking at patents issued by the USPTO that specifically mention the term ritonavir in the patent claims, or mention the NIH contract that was used to fund the early development of the product. This includes 194 patents that cite ritonavir in the patent claims, and another 42 patents that cite the NIH contact that funded the early ritonavir work. We also provide quotes from an August 19, 2011 WIPO report on the patent landscape for ritonavir that found 805 patent families related to ritonavir.