October 2, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Zack Struver
+1 (202) 332-2670
zack.struver@keionline.org
Seven House Members Push U.S. Trade Representative to Support Indefinite Waiver on Pharmaceutical Patents for Least Developed Countries (LDCs)
Press Release: Coalition for Affordable T-DM1 Asks the UK Government to Employ Crown Use Authority to Lower Price of Expensive Cancer Drug sold by Roche
CONTACT:
Diarmaid McDonald
email: accessdiarmaid@gmail.com
+44.7894.4557.81
Susannah Markandya
email: s.markandya@gmail.com
+44.7811.9573.12
Zack Struver
email: zack.struver@keionline.org
Cell: +1.914.582.1428
Office: +1.202.332.2670 (between 2:00 PM and 10:00 PM BST)
Knowledge Ecology International sent letters today (attached to this release), September 21, 2015, to the Office of the General Counsel to the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Commerce, asking that they investigate USTR and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the potential violation of an Executive Order issued by Bill Clinton — which prohibits the use of trade pressures to hinder polices related to access to HIV/AIDS medicines in sub-Saharan Africa — in their attempt to stop a request by Least Develop Continue Reading
On September 28, 2012, nearly three years ago, KEI submitted a FOIA request to USTR for “all documents relating to the World Health Organization (WHO) consideration of an agreement or treaty to support medical R&D.”
Three years later USTR has released 89 pages of documents, with some redactions. But USTR also withheld 64 documents pursuant to FOIA exemption 552(b)(5) and three documents pursuant to FOIA exemption 552(b)(1).
This is a video by Zack Struver about Senator Bernie Sander’s proposal to expand Veterans access to patented medical inventions. The video discusses both the proposal by Senator Sanders to give the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs the authority to use compulsory licenses on patents on medical inventions, including drugs, and the history of “government use” provisions in current U.S. statutes, including 28 U.S.C. 1498, which Sanders proposes modifying.
This is a video by Zack Struver about Senator Bernie Sander’s proposal to expand Veterans access to patented medical inventions. The video discusses both the proposal by Senator Sanders to give the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs the authority to… Continue Reading
On Friday, 11 September 2015 five public interest groups (Health GAP, Knowledge Ecology International, Médecins Sans Frontières, Oxfam America and Public Citizen) sent a letter to Ambassador Michael Froman (United States Trade Representative) and Michelle Lee, (Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office) requesting that the Obama administration disclose its position on the LDC request for an extension of their pharmaceutical production transition period under the WTO TRIPS Agreement.
These were comments KEI provided to the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), for its consultation on expanding the mandate to include drugs to treat the hepatitis C virus.
To: consultation@medicinespatentpool.org.
Date: August 28, 2015
Re: Comments by James Love on behalf of KEI for the consultation regarding the MPP mandate to expand into HCV (and other diseases).
KEI has submitted joint comments with UAEM in this consultation. Here on behalf of KEI I make a few additional points.
IMS Health, the global information and technology services company, known for its statistics on sales of drugs, published a study in May 2015 that estimated the global market for oncology drugs now exceeds $100 billion per year.
Ambassador Livia Leu, Head of the Bilateral Economic Relations Division and Delegate of the Federal Council for Trade Agreements, Switzerland