Posts Tagged: "United Nations"

WHO’s C-TAP Initiative Pushes for Non-Exclusive Global Licensing Amid Pharma Industry Concerns

On Friday, May 29, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially launched the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), an initiative which is intended to improve access to treatments, vaccines and other medical technologies which are developed in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The program, initially proposed by Costa Rica, has highlighted the tension between pharmaceutical developers and advocates for access to medicine, which has been magnified by the economic concerns created during the global shutdown.

Navigating the Maze of International Cannabis Trademarks

Some have dubbed it the modern-day gold rush while skeptics warn of the hostile attitude of the current administration in Washington D.C. Whatever the view there is no denying that the marijuana legalization landscape is contentious and demands attention, including from trademark attorneys who will increasingly see their clients interested in cannabis related business activities, and consequently in obtaining cannabis trademarks.

The UN has Better Things to do Than Destroy Innovation

The UN Panel unfortunately squandered its 9-month gestation period. It stuffed into one repository every long-discarded remnant of anti-patent and pro-price-control schemes buried in IP’s historic landfill. Its Report expressly recommended directives to carry out each of them, demonstrating their counterproductive unworkability. After cramming each policy device into a trashcan of unworkable IP stratagems, they waited until the last minute and dumped it on the doorstep of the UN General Assembly. As University of Chicago Economist Tomas Philips concisely explains in this weekend’s WSJ, the UNHLP’s recommendations are nonsensical.

UN Secretary General’s Panel on Access to Medicines Reports: Government Knows Best

Delayed for months beyond its expected issue date the Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Access to Medicine’s report emerged yesterday. Apparently the panelists scrambled to better disguise their predetermined agenda behind reams of soothing rhetoric. While lip service is given to the unimagined advances in medicine under the current industry led drug development system, that’s quickly discarded under the pretext of providing better access to health care for the world’s poorest citizens through a system run by international bureaucracy. These recommendations are largely directed at the US life science industry. Luckily, one panel member provides an effective rebuttal to this approach but unless his message is repeated many public officials, media outlets and the general public could come to accept that a government run system would be “more fair.”

Counterfeit Medicines and the Role of IP in Patient Safety

Given the devastating impact of counterfeit medicines on patients and the importance of intellectual property protection in combating pharmaceutical counterfeiting, it is troubling that the UN High Level Panel seems poised to prevent a series of recommendations that will undermine public health under the guise of enhancing access. Without the assurance of quality medicines, access is meaningless. Moreover, while falsely presenting intellectual property rights as the primary obstacle to global health care, the High Level Panel downplays a host of other factors that prevent developing country patients from getting the drugs they need: inadequate medical infrastructure, insufficient political will, a shortage of clinical trials in nations where neglected diseases are endemic, poverty, and insufficient market incentives.