Read media coverage of the Docetaxel case and Cipla’s plans to take the case to the Constitutional Court below: http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/Content.aspx?id=177438 http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/Content.aspx?id=177355
READ MOREOn 26 July 2012, the Supreme Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in the matter between the Aventis group of pharmaceutical companies and Cipla’s group of generic pharmaceutical companies. This is the first judgment to decisively say that public interest considerations must be taken into account when balancing the interests […]
READ MOREAn important United Nations commission has made a number of recommendations for law reform relating to intellectual property and access to medicines. Notably, the commission recognises that the current international patent regime does not serve the interests of the poor. The report, entitled “HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights & Health” was published this month […]
READ MOREBy Mara Kardas-Nelson, Access & Innovation Officer, MSF South Africa The Indian government is being taken to court. After the country’s patent office rejected a patent application filed for imatinib mesylate, branded Gleevec or Glivec, the drug company Novartis filed for legal action against the government of India over the country’s strict patentability criteria as […]
READ MORETODAY at 13:00 South African health activists, academics, medical doctors, government representatives, and lawyers will gather in Cape Town to rally against the legal case by the drug company Novartis against the government of India. The outcome of the case will have far-reaching impacts and activists from India and South Africa speaking at the rally […]
READ MOREWhen: 14:30 – 16:30, Sunday 8 July 2012 Where: Peoples Health Assembly, The University of the Western Cape (UWC), Room TBA Attendance open to all registered participants of the PHA During the 3rd Peoples Health Assembly, to be hosted in Cape Town from 6 – 11 July, the Treatment Action Campaign and Médecins Sans Frontières […]
READ MOREIn 2011 Professor Yousuf Vawda of the Law Faculty at the University of Kwazulu-Natal wrote an important paper titled ‘Pharmaceutical Innovation, Incremental Patenting and Compulsory Licensing Country Case Study: South Africa’. This report was commissioned by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) on the same topic in five developing countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, India and […]
READ MOREWith recent amendments to its patent laws, China becomes the latest in a string of countries to promote access to medicines through an enhanced compulsory licensing (CL) framework. South Africa must move to develop more effective CL laws of its own. CL is when a government allows someone to produce a patented product or process […]
READ MOREA public lecture by Catherine Tomlinson, Senior Researcher for the Treatment Action Campaign and Mara Kardas-Nelson, Access and Innovation Officer for Médecins Sans Frontières When: 14 June 2012, 18:00 for 18:30 Where: Barnard Fuller, Conference Room 4, University of Cape Town On Thursday, 14 June 2012 the Peoples Health Movement, the Treatment Action […]
READ MOREThis month, Argentina joined the ranks of countries making it harder to get a patent for ‘inventions’ which offer little to no real improvement over existing drugs. The detailed guidelines, issued jointly by Argentina’s patents office and health department, can be found here.[1] The guidelines instruct patent examiners to reject (with some exceptions) new use, […]
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