Tag: access to medicine

an ambulance parked at the entrance of an emergency department

Equitable and Ethical Access to Care: The Case of Pre-Hospital Blood Administration

Stephen Wood 1 Comment

By Stephen Wood

The State of Massachusetts is currently reviewing a new protocol for the pre-hospital (i.e., ambulance) administration of blood products to patients with acute hemorrhagic shock.

In the pre-hospital setting, hemorrhagic shock, which is characterized by rapid blood loss that results in potentially fatal oxygen depletion of the vital organs, is traditionally managed by the administration of intravenous fluids. But there is a growing body of evidence spanning several decades that this is not beneficial and, in fact, can be harmful.

In the hospital setting, blood loss is treated by replacing blood, most commonly in the form of packed red blood cells, plasma, and platelets. There is strong data supporting the use of replacement blood products for the management of life-threatening hemorrhagic shock, specifically a reduction in all-cause mortality. Moreover, research has demonstrated the safety, efficacy, and feasibility of pre-hospital blood transfusion. Several states have implemented protocols for pre-hospital blood administration based on this supporting data. There are barriers, however, to initiating this practice at several regulatory and non-regulatory levels. The result is that access to a potentially life-saving intervention is inequitably distributed.

Read More

FDA approved concept. Rubber stamp with FDA and pills on craft paper. 3d illustration.

Book Review: ‘Drugs and the FDA: Safety, Efficacy, and the Public’s Trust’ by Mikkael A. Sekeres

Matthew Chun Leave a comment

By Matthew Chun

In Drugs and the FDA: Safety, Efficacy, and the Public’s Trust, oncologist Mikkael A. Sekeres tells a captivating story of how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration became the agency it is today and how it makes some of its toughest decisions regarding the regulation of potent drugs.

Sekeres centers his narrative on the controversial 2011 Avastin hearings, in which the FDA reconsidered and ultimately withdrew the breast cancer indication for Genentech’s Avastin drug. Having served on the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) tasked with making a recommendation to the FDA based on the hearings and clinical data, Sekeres provides a relatable personal account of the emotion-filled proceedings and the agonizing decision to withdraw approval of a beloved treatment option that never lived up to its promising initial results.

As he recounts his experience as an ODAC member, Sekeres skillfully weaves in historical references to various regulatory failures, including poisoned vaccines, opioid deaths, thalidomide-induced birth defects, and the woefully inadequate response to HIV/AIDS, which shaped the role of the FDA since its inception in 1930. Upon describing how the FDA developed its modern system of checks and balances to ensure drug safety, efficacy, and accessibility, Sekeres then illustrates how the Avastin hearings put all of these processes and values to the test. Among other things, Drugs and the FDA encourages readers to grapple with several important themes that pervade the agency’s decision-making process, including (1) the tension between drug safety and accessibility, (2) the relative weight of expert opinion versus patient autonomy, and (3) the role of democracy and transparency in drug regulation.

Read More

Bill of Health - Globe and vaccine, covid vaccine

Access-to-Medicines Activists Demand Health Justice During COVID-19 Pandemic

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Brook K. Baker 

It was apparent from the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic that a business-as-usual approach — perpetuating the biopharmaceutical industry’s intellectual property-based monopolies and allowing artificial supply scarcity and nationalistic hoarding by rich countries — would result in systemic failure and gross inequity.

The world had seen it all before, from the Big Pharma blockade of affordable antiretrovirals to treat HIV/AIDS, to the hoarding of vaccines by the global north during the H1N1 bird flu outbreak in 2009 and its stockpiling of Tamiflu.

Activists in the access-to-medicines movement quickly mobilized to combat the threat of vaccine/therapeutic apartheid.

Read More

Drone hovering in air above mountain range.

Drone-Enabled Pharmaceutical Delivery: Navigating Regulatory Turbulence

Vrushab Gowda Leave a comment

By Vrushab Gowda

The burgeoning industry of drone-enabled pharmaceutical delivery offers a number of advantages over its low-tech forebears, not least including patient convenience.

It minimizes exposure to infection and potentially protects patient anonymity, all while reducing wait times relative to in-person or traditional mail-order pharmacies. Additionally, drones can broaden access to medications in resource-poor areas, including locations with low densities of health care facilities, and those where underdeveloped transportation links hinder ground delivery.

However, drone delivery of pharmaceuticals enters into a nebulous legal environment, sitting as it does at the intersection of healthcare, privacy law, and aviation regulation. It is, moreover, a dynamic landscape, which continues to evolve with new federal rules, judicial decisions, and corporate practices.

Read More

Webinar, 6/28: Procedural Aspects of Compulsory Licensing under TRIPS

Timo Minssen Leave a comment

Join us at yet another webinar with J. Wested at the University of Copenhagen. This time we will debate procedural issues in compulsory licensing with H. Grosse Ruse-Kahn (University of Cambridge) & M. Desai (Eli Lilly). Further information on our webinar series is available at here, here, and below:

Procedural Aspects of Compulsory Licensing under Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)

Wednesday 28. June 2017
4-6 p.m (CEST)
Sign-up & questions: Jakob.blak.wested@jur.ku.dk

This webinar on “TRIPS and the life sciences” will approach the question of compulsory licensing by looking at the technical and procedural requirements applied by courts when evaluating a petition for a compulsory license.  

The balancing of the instrumental application of patent rights as a stimulator of innovation and the public interest in having access to these innovations form a controversial trajectory of discourse, which is as old as patent law. Compulsory licenses are one of the means that have been applied throughout the history of patent law, to condition this complex intersection of interests. The TRIPS agreement is no exception and art 31 contains the provision for member states to grant CL. In 2013, the Indian authorities granted a compulsory license to NATCO Pharmaceuticals for Bayers patented pharmaceutical product Carboxy Substituted Diphenyl Ureas, useful for the treatment of liver and kidney cancer. This decision raised several issues regarding the procedures and requirements to be met in order to grant a compulsory license. Furthermore, in January 2017 an amendment to TRIPS agreement entered into force allowing compulsory licensors to export their generic pharmaceuticals to least developed countries, further recalibrating the intersection of the monopoly power of the patent and public interest. Read More