Brook Baker

MPP-AbbVie License on Glecaprevir and Pibrentasvir (G/P): Backtracking on Geographic Coverage but with Options for Oppositions, Compulsory Licenses, and Negotiated Territorial Expansion

Posted by Brook Baker | Nov 14, 2018 | News

AbbVie and the Medicines Patent Pool have negotiated a royalty-free licensing and sublicensing agreement on a priority hepatitis C direct acting antiviral, glecaprevir and pibrentasvir (G/P). This G/P combo is recommended by the WHO as a pan-genotypic adult first-line regimen with ongoing Phase 3 trials for adolescents and children. G/P has a high resistance barrier and the shortest treatment duration of any HCV regimen to date.

A Sliver of Hope: Analyzing Voluntary Licenses to Accelerate Affordable Access to Medicines

Posted by Brook Baker | Aug 13, 2018 | Academic Resources

Abstract: As a result of global AIDS activism, governments’ latent and exercised powers to bypass pharmaceutical monopolies, and halting pharmaceutical industry accommodation, a new form of voluntary licensing has emerged focused on first permitting and then facilitating generic production of certain pharmaceutical products for sale and use in many but not all low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These so-called “access” licenses are pluralistic in detail and not free of commercial motivations for either originators or generic producers, but they do differ from arms-length, purely commercial licenses that have been broadly used in the industry for decades. Although the first of these access licenses were negotiated bilaterally by innovators at the receiving end of AIDS activism and threats of government action, including the issuance of compulsory or government-use licenses, the leading model of more public-health oriented voluntary licenses can be traced to the formation of the Medicines Patent Pool under the financial sponsorship of Unitaid in 2010.

Wink, Wink: Pfizer Agrees to Roll Back Price Hikes

Posted by Brook Baker | Jul 13, 2018 | Academic Resources, Blog

In a staged play designed to give cover both to President Trump and Big Pharma, Pfizer has announced a temporary roll back of its extortionate price hikes on 41 medicines averaging nearly 9% over and above its existing monopoly prices. A scene-by-scene recap reveals the cozy, mutually beneficial farce that Trump and Pfizer are enacting. Scene One: Drug companies like Pfizer use their patent and data-protection monopolies to set prices at whatever the market will bear, with U.S. purchasers paying nearly twice as much as is paid in countries with more rational approaches to trying to prevent abusive pricing.

Misleading Ab”Use” of Percentages in Drug Price Escalation

Posted by Brook Baker | Jul 6, 2018 | Blog

As misleading as it is when drug companies say they use R&D costs, therapeutic value, or “market forces” when they set the initial price of new medicines, Big Pharma is equally duplicitous when talking about their repetitive price increases on existing medicines via their direct and indirect references to ordinary inflation rates and the consumer price index.

Lies, Distortions, and False Promise: The U.S. Position on Compulsory Licenses in the 2018 Special 301 Report

Posted by Brook Baker | May 1, 2018 | Compulsory Licensing, Special 301

[Brook Baker] Once again the U.S. is unbelievably duplicitous in its 2018 Special 301 Report on permissible uses of compulsory and government use licenses by its trading partners, including most recently Colombia and Malaysia where it is announcing out-of-cycle reviews. On the one hand, the USTR pays lip service to the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, saying that “the United States respects a trading partner’s right to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all” (p. 33) and that it supports use of the so-called Paragraph 6 compulsory licensing system (p. 34), which has only been used once in 15 years. However, it has withdrawn a statement in its 2017 Special 301 Report that “the United States respects its trading partners’ rights to grant compulsory licenses in a manner consistent with the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement and the Doha Declaration … ” On the other hand, the U.S. issued a broadside assault on the actual issuance of, or even discussion of compulsory licenses in a Report replete with lies, distortions, and false promises.

Don’t Be Afraid of Compulsory Licenses Despite US Threats: Special 301 Reports 1998-2017 – Listing Concerns but Taking Little Action

Posted by Brook Baker | Feb 20, 2018 | Bilateral Trade Pressures, Special 301

For the past 20 years in its annual Special 301 Reports, the US has consistently criticized countries that do not have compulsory licensing standards that Big Pharma likes, that threaten to issue compulsory licenses, or that have actually had the temerity to issue a compulsory license… Despite its many complaints, veiled threats, and backroom maneuvers against compulsory licenses, the USTR’s bark has been much, much louder than it’s bite.

Canada Blinks in Face of US/Pharma Pressure

Posted by Brook Baker | Jul 3, 2017 | Domestic Legislation, NAFTA

Supreme Court Adopts Wink-Wink Patent Utility Rule In a stunning reversal of policy, on June 30, 2017, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned decades of precedent making it easier for the biopharmaceutical industry to gain...

International Collaboration on IP and Access to Medicines: Birth of South Africa’s Fix the Patent Laws Campaign

Posted by Brook Baker | Dec 12, 2016 | IP and Human Rights

Abstract: In 2000, my colleague Yousuf Vawda and I became active in the global campaign to address intellectual property rights (IPRs), human rights, and barriers to access to affordable medicines for treating HIV and AIDS in...

Submission by Academics, Experts, Scholars and Pro-Access Advocates to South Africa’s Intellectual Property Consultative Framework

Posted by Brook Baker | Oct 2, 2016 | Academic Resources, Domestic Legislation

Joint submission authored by Yousuf Vawda, Andrew Rens, Andrew Rens, Brook Baker, Tobias Schonwetter, and Achal Prabhala; and co-submitted by 44 other academics, experts, scholars and advocates. The full submission is available...

Trans-Pacific Partnership Provisions in Intellectual Property, Transparency, and Investment Chapters Threaten Access to Medicines in the US and Elsewhere

Posted by Brook Baker | Mar 8, 2016 | Academic Resources, TPP

Baker BK (2016) Trans-Pacific Partnership Provisions in Intellectual Property, Transparency, and Investment Chapters Threaten Access to Medicines in the US and Elsewhere. PLoS Med 13(3): e1001970....

Health GAP Submission to U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means on the Trans Pacific Partnership and Access to Medicine

Posted by Brook Baker | Dec 11, 2015 | Blog

U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee Hearing, Dec. 8, 2015 Written Submission from Health GAP (Also available as a PDF) In its issue analysis paper, the Committee on Ways and Means posed three basic questions...

TPP = Transnational Pharmaceutical Profiteering – Big Pharma’s Monopolies Strengthen and Multiply in Trans Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement

Posted by Brook Baker | Nov 6, 2015 | TPP

After five years of secret negotiations directed and controlled by pharmaceutical lobbyists and drug-company-dominated trade advisory groups, the official text of the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiated by the Obama...

LDCs Be Damned: USTR and Big Pharma seeks to eviscerate Least Developed Countries’ Insulation From Pharmaceutical Monopolies

Posted by Brook Baker | Oct 12, 2015 | Multilateral Fora

In November of 2001, at the height of the global AIDS pandemic, every WTO member country in the world, including the United States, voted unanimously in the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health that...

Corporate Power Unbound: Investor-State Arbitration of IP Monopolies on Medicines – Eli Lilly v. Canada and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

Posted by Brook Baker | Sep 30, 2015 | Academic Resources, TPP

Brook K. Baker and Katrina Geddes Abstract: Despite the deep irony of free trade agreements being subverted to codify and extend anti-competitive monopoly rights and despite the equally deep irony of foreign investors having...

Will the U.S. Create Barriers to LDCs’ Future Access to Medicines?

Posted by Brook Baker | Sep 7, 2015 | Multilateral Fora

Earlier this year, WTO Least Developed Country Members requested an unconditional extension of the expiring WTO TRIPS transition period that exempts them from having to implement pharmaceutical patents and other intellectual...

Removal of “New Forms” Patent Protection in Most Recent TPP Draft

Posted by Brook Baker | Aug 5, 2015 | TPP

After a long campaign by right-to-health activists and TPP partners, it appears that the U.S. has finally dropped its efforts in TPP negotiations to require patent coverage for new forms of known products that lack evidence of...

UNITAID NGO Delegation Expresses Strong Support for LDC Pharmaceutical Extension Request at WTO TRIPS Council

Posted by Brook Baker | Mar 10, 2015 | Multilateral Fora

The NGO delegation to the Board of UNITAID offers its strong support for the proposal of WTO least developed country Members to extend the transition period for enforcing protections for pharmaceutical related patents and...

LDC Members’ Entitlement to and Need for a Further Extension of Their Pharmaceutical Transition Period

Posted by Brook Baker | Feb 25, 2015 | Academic Resources, Multilateral Fora

LDCs Members have submitted a duly motivated request for an unconditional extension of the 2002-2016 pharmaceutical transition period (covering patents and data) and for relief from the requirements of TRIPS Article 70.8 and...

The Dangers of the Indian Government’s Flirtation with U.S. Pharma and the Risks for India’s Coherent, Pro-Public Health IP Policy

Posted by Brook Baker | Oct 6, 2014 | Bilateral Trade Pressures

[Cross posted from Equilibri.net] U.S. business interests and government officials are trying to sell the idea that heightened intellectual property protections in India are essential to foreign investment, innovation, and...

Gilead’s Hepatitis C Medicines License – Troubling Territorial Exclusions, Illusory Exceptions, and Tiered Pricing Policy Fracture Global Access

Posted by Brook Baker | Sep 17, 2014 | Academic Resources

Gilead has just released the text of its hepatitis C license. Although there has been some praise for Gilead offering expanded generic access in 91 countries where over 100 million people living with hepatitis C live, there has...

Search

Follow

PIJIP

infojustice.org is hosted by the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University Washington College of Law.

Infojustice Roundup

Archives | Subscribe

Free to Share

Blog Categories

Coronavirus Trade Agreements NAFTA TPP ACTA Domestic Legislation Domestic Policy & Litigation Limitations and Exceptions Creative Commons Multilateral (WIPO, WTO, UN) Takedowns Access to Medicines Empirical Research

Ahmed Abdel Latif
Alek Tarkowski
Alexander Dent
Allan Rocha de Souza
Andres Guadamuz
Andres Izquierdo
Brandon Butler
Brook Baker
Burcu Kilic
Carolina Botero
Carolina Rossini
Caroline Ncube
Carrie Sager
Celeste Drake
Christophe Geiger
David Levine
Eve Gray
Hafiz Aziz ur Rehman
Heesob Nam
Hong Xue
Jonathan Band
Jorge Contreras
Jimmy Koo
Joana Varon
Joe Karaganis
Krista Maier
Lina Diaz
Leanne O’Donnell
Marcela Palacio Puerta
Matthew Rimmer
Matthew Webb
Michael Carroll
Michael Geist
Michael Palmedo
Michael Smith
Miguel Morachimo
Meredith Jacob
Margot Kaminski
Pedro Mizukami
Peter Maybarduk
Pranesh Prakash
Rashmi Rangnath
Sangeeta Shashikant
Sara Bannerman
Stela Bivol
Sean Flynn
Stephanie Rosenberg
Susan Chalmers
Thiru Balasubramaniam
William Xu
Peter Yu /