The Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT) welcomes the news that a Russian court has approved a compulsory license for patents held by Celgene for the cancer drug lenalidomide, marketed in many countries under the trade name Revlimid. Compulsory licenses on patents can promote health and protect the interests of cancer patients when there is excessive pricing and other abuses of a legal monopoly. Since entering the market, Revlimid has generated more than $46 billion in sales for Celgene, including $2.3 billion in the first three months of 2018. In the United States, Celgene still claims the drug is protected by 26 patented inventions andRead More →

On November 6, 2017, UACT sent a letter to the US Congress, supporting legislation to permit the United States to negotiate prices for drugs reimbursed by the Medicare program, but also ask the Congress to include language on compulsory licensing of patents, in order to ensure that when there is a dispute over the price, the monopoly is put at risk, rather than the patient.   The letter also asks Congress to enact measures to enhance the transparency of R&D costs and drug manufacturing know-how, and under feasibility studies of delinkage. A copy of the letter is available as a PDF, here , and reads as follows: NovemberRead More →