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medicines

New patent rules in India-UK trade agreement will prioritise pharmaceutical profit over public health
13-Feb-2024 AFTINET
The “TRIPS-Plus” provisions in the India-UK Agreement are a dangerous attempt to increase the power of pharmaceutical companies by placing profits before public health.
EFTA-India FTA: Article on protection of undisclosed information (intellectual property chapter draft, Jan 2024)
12-Feb-2024
Letter: Civil society calls on UK Prime Minister to ensure UK-India free trade agreement does not threaten access to affordable medicines
23-Jan-2024 MSF
MSF and over 50 UK-based civil society organisations and individuals sent this open letter to United Kingdom Prime Minister, urging him to commit that the UK-India Free Trade Agreement will not gut the public health safeguards that are in India’s intellectual property laws.
AfCFTA: More free trade? For whose benefit?
13-Oct-2023 bilaterals.org & GRAIN
So what does this trade deal mean for ordinary Africans in a time of deep climate, economic and food crises?
Kenya, Indonesia to sign preferential trade agreement
11-Sep-2023 Nation
Kenya and Indonesia yesterday signed four bilateral agreements on food security, mining, renewable energy and health following talks between President William Ruto and Indonesia’s Joko Widodo.
EU trade deals risk affordability of generic medicines for Global South
28-Jul-2023 Politico
The disproportionate intellectual property protections the bloc proposes could threaten the affordability of generics that countries like India and Indonesia export to poorer nations.
Proposed EU-India FTA
30-Jun-2023 Heinrich Böll Stiftung
Can India protect its development objectives by signing a free trade agreement with an unequal partner with different ambitions?
Clamour against United Kingdom’s free-trade negotiator
20-Mar-2023 The Telegraph
Groups from India and nearly 40 countries express concern about a leaked chapter from the proposed FTA that they say appears to represent ‘a wish list’ of the pharmaceutical industry.
India-UK FTA leaked draft reveals nobody’s gain except big pharma
30-Nov-2022 Info Justice
India - UK FTA provisions favor neither India nor the UK except the pharma industry in a big way. It defeats the firm stand taken by the Indian PM three years ago when he decided to pull out of the RCEP against the corporate interests over people’s lives.
MSF responds to UK’s disastrous proposal on intellectual property in UK-India Free Trade Agreement
2-Nov-2022 MSF
UK IP demands contain provisions that would drastically harm access to affordable, lifesaving generic medicines from India, upon which millions of people around the world rely.
WTO COVID IP negotiating text as of 25/5/2022
28-May-2022
Consolidated negotiating COVID intellectual property text as of 25/5/2022
After India-Aus FTA, Indian pharma industry sees global opportunities
26-Apr-2022 Business Today
After the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement signed between India and Australia, the domestic pharmaceutical industry is seeing a plethora of opportunities for international trade.
An India-UK trade deal could mean a race to the bottom for Indian workers
1-Feb-2022 New Internationalist
On farmers and food, vaccine inequality, climate justice and digital rights, we need to act in solidarity – and not allow trade rules to sacrifice people to corporate profit.
World has moved on from US, EU’s drug monopoly. India and China are changing IP regulations
4-Jan-2022 The Print
Even without an IP waiver from the WTO, China and India are leading the challenge to the West’s vaccine monopoly.
They concern you more than you know: On the perils and potential of international investment agreements for the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and COVID-19 discussions at the World Trade Organization
23-Dec-2021 IISD
Talks on a possible COVID-19-related TRIPS decision aimed at scaling up vaccine and therapeutics production and equitable distribution continue but investment agreements are absent from them.
‘Clear risk’ UK joining Pacific trade deal will raise drug prices for NHS
17-Nov-2021 The Independent
There is evidence of a potential conflict between the CPTPP and the UK’s current system of market authorisation of generic and biosimilar drugs.
In memory of Heesob Nam, a patent attorney who fought against vaccine inequality until the end
31-May-2021 Kyunghyang
Heesob Nam, a patent attorney who dedicated his life to preventing the monopoly of ’intellectual property’ by a few, passed away on May 10th.
TRIPS Waiver: A BIT of a challenge for India
24-May-2021 The Wire
Potential BIT claims by foreign pharmaceutical companies against India for the revocation, suspension or non-enforcement of IPRs could undermine the benefits of a potential TRIPS waiver.
Intellectual property and COVID-19 medicines: why a WTO waiver may not be enough
25-Feb-2021 The Conversation
The COVID-19 pandemic, and the race to make vaccines and other useful technologies more accessible to people around the world, has once again highlighted the tension between intellectual property rights and the promotion of public health.
UK and EU pharma call for medicines to be prioritised in Brexit trade talks
29-Sep-2020 European Pharmaceutical Review
They have both emphasised the need for trade talks to mitigate medicine supply chain disruptions following Brexit.