A recent panel of health experts gathered at the hallowed Swiss Intellectual Property Institute in Bern (which counts Albert Einstein among its alumni) tackled some of the toughest questions facing global health policymakers with an eye toward actually solving them and not just restating polarised positions. One of the ideas discussed at the event was how priorities for diseases and research are handled at the global level. Continue reading ->
The Trump administration this week proposed drastic cuts in funding for international activities including foreign policy and global health in 2019, while further building up military and big business activities. Programs related to international activities will have to prove their value to American interests and other countries are demanded to pay more, according to the proposed budget sent yesterday to Congress, which is ultimately expected to set about the task of restoring numerous programs. Continue reading ->
The new World Health Organization director general last month announced a range of officials to serve as programme directors, touting the unusual achievement of naming almost all women to add to an overall women's majority in the senior leadership of the organisation - a first for the UN. Now after some questions arose over the choice of a Russian official to head up efforts against tuberculosis, the WHO defended its choices as fully merit-based, including in an email to Intellectual Property Watch and its sister publication Global Health Policy News. Continue reading ->
The mysterious death last week of Canadian billionaire Barry Sherman and his wife has raised many questions. For some, one question is what impact it will have on pharmaceutical competition in Canada, as his giant generic medicines company Apotex was seen as making a mark in access to medicines. It was also recalled that the company is the only one to have used an obscure provision of a World Trade Organization intellectual property agreement aimed at making more affordable medicines available in least developed countries. Continue reading ->