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On May 11, 2018, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) held a “Stakeholder Listening Session” in the HHS Hubert H. Humphrey Building Auditorium, 200 Independence Ave, SW, Washington, DC 20201 to prepare for the SEVENTY-FIRST WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY A71/1 Geneva, Switzerland 21–26 May 2018 The provisional agenda for the WHA is here: http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA71/A71_1-en.pdf The meeting went from 3pm to about 4pm and about 45 participants had 2 minutes for each intervention on the many agenda item. Most speakers represented industries such as the manufacturers or the sugar related good industries. UACT registered to take the floor for the following item: 11.7 PreparationRead More →

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Today, Kayla Gu, MS1 at UCLA spoke to the University of California Board of Regents on behalf of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) and the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT). She urged UCLA to drop the patent claim in India on enzalutamide (Xtandi) that would bar affordable access to a lifesaving prostate cancer drug. Kayla knows the story of Xtandi quite well: she presented on the topic at Los Angeles Global Health Conference 2018: Looking In, Looking Out: Balancing Global and Local Priorities in the Current Political Climate on February 3, 2018 and in the following blog: The StoryRead More →

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UACT has submitted comments to the United States Trade Representative regarding the 2018 Special 301 Review. UACT’s comments can be found as a pdf here and copied in full below:   1621 Connecticut Avenue NW Suite 500 Washington, DC 20009 Tel.: 202.332.2670 www.uact.org February 6, 2018 Sung Chang Director for Innovation and Intellectual Property United States Trade Representative Docket No. USTR-2017-0024 Via submissions made through the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Dear Sung Chang, Re: UACT Comments Regarding the 2018 Special 301 Review The Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT), created in 2014, is a union of people affected by cancer, their family members and friends,Read More →

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UACT applauds the Chilean Congress resolution calling on the President to advance the compulsory licensing request on HCV drugs made in March 2017 by patients, advocates including Innovarte NGO, and elected officials. The resolution, Number 1014, passed by a 96-0 vote with one abstention, and includes the signatures of representatives across the entire political spectrum 1. In Chile, the private market price of sofosbuvir at the time of the compulsory licensing request was approximately $36,000 USD per patient. This price is well in excess of Chile’s GNI per capita of $14,100 USD 2. The Ministry of Health currently pays $7,000 USD for a three-month supplyRead More →

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On December 12, 2017, the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), a United Nations-backed public health organisation with the mission to increase access to HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis treatments in low- and middle-income countries, made a welcome announcement for cancer patients: the expansion of MedsPaL. MedsPaL is a database created to provide information on the intellectual property status of priority medicines in developing countries, to patented treatments on the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Model List of Essential Medicines (EML), and its expansion is certainly a step in the right direction.   UACT was encouraged to see that data on patents for certain medicines to treat chronicRead More →