16.09.2016
UN High-Level Panel On Access To Medicines Issues “Landmark” Report

Intellectual Property Watch "The long-awaited report by the United Nations High Level Panel on Access to Medicines was released today, making many recommendations. The panel calls for countries to embrace the policy space available in the World Trade Organization intellectual property rules, and invest more in health. It also calls for negotiation of a binding international treaty on research and development, delinking prices from R&D costs, greater transparency in drug pricing, public health impact assessments in free trade agreements, and encouragement to better use international legal tools available to countries to ensure affordable medical products. And it lays out the path ahead, calling for several new bodies to be created to take recommendations forward.

(...) “Never in the past has our knowledge of science been so profound and the possibilities to treat all manner of diseases so great … and yet, many people and communities in need of effective prevention methods, life-enhancing and life-saving treatments and rehabilitation do not receive them,” the report says in opening." (Photo: United Nations Development Programme/flickr)