U.S. Senate and House Committees on Foreign Relations held hearings (March 10 & 11, 2010) focusing on future challenges and opportunities in global health.  This WHA report (see attached) provides an overview of discussions from these hearings and the videos capture some of the highlights.

Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics
Summer 2009
Kristina M. Lybecker, Colorado College
Elisabeth Fowler, World Health Advocacy

The tension between economic policy and health policy is a longstanding dilemma, but one that was brought to the fore with the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement in 1994. The pharmaceutical industry has long argued that intellectual property protection (IPP) is vital for innovation. At the same time, there are those who counter that strong IPP negatively impacts the affordability and availability of essential medicines in developing countries.

A series of Case Studies for Global Health have recently been published by a partnership of leading global health organizations.  This publication highlights collaborations that are built and/or transactions that are entered into which address a global health concern.

Recently announced pharmacy reform in Ontario is a major step in redressing artificially high generic drug prices in Canada. Reforming Ontario's drug system will save Canadian consumers, employers and taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars by eliminating kickbacks and rebates that have served to inflate the prices that consumers pay for generic drugs in Canada.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced today that they will commit $10 billion over the next 10 years to help research, develop and deliver vaccines for the world’s poorest countries.  The Foundation estimates that increased vaccination could save more than 8 million children by 2020.

“We must make this the decade of vaccines,” said Bill Gates. “Vaccines already save and improve millions of lives in developing countries. Innovation will make it possible to save more children than ever before.”

The joint WHO/UNICEF/World Bank briefing served primarily to launch their State of the World’s Vaccines and Immunization Report.

While the report contained encouraging results, these organizations stressed the need to continued vigilance and called on donor nations to address the funding gap that still leaves millions of children at risk.

The Journal of Globalization and Health recently published an interesting article entitled “Benefits of global partnerships to facilitate access to medicines:  a multi-country analysis of patients and patient outcomes in GIPAP.” The article concludes that The Glivec International Assistance Program (GIPAP) has a significant positive effect on patient access to important medicines for a life threatening condition such as Chronic Myeloid Leukemia.

Elisabeth Fowler delivered the attached presentation at the Drug Information Association conference in Ottawa, Canada in November, 2009.

The European Commission, European Medicines Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently adopted a common application form for drug makers seeking orphan designation for their medicines. This will simplify the drug approval process and spur innovation by allowing companies to apply for approval of their new product in both the US and across Europe at the same time. In addition, this new process will help the regulatory agencies to better understand each other's systems. [1]