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In: Meetings, Negotiations, Presentations

On Wednesday, 24 May 2017, UACT participated in Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), Oxfam and Stichting Health Action International (HAI) WHA side event on addressing access barriers and affordability challenges for cancer medicines. This event focused on policy options to address the access barriers and affordability challenges for cancer medicines, in conjunction with the Assembly’s consideration of agenda item 15.6 – Cancer prevention and control in the context of an integrated approach. In 2012, cancer was the 2nd leading cause of death in the world (8.2 million); cancer cases are projected to increase from 14.1 million in 2012 to 21.6 million in 2030. Panelists will addressRead More →

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In: Actions

On May 24, 2017, the Union for Affordable Cancer treatment and 56 civil society organizations and academic experts called Janet Napolitano, the President of the University of California, and the Board of Regents, “withdraw your efforts to obtain a patent on the prostate cancer drug enzalutamide (brand name Xtandi) in India.”  A PDF copy of the letter is available here: UACT-U-Cal-Xtandi-Patent-India-2017May24 The text of the letter is as follows: Janet Napolitano, University of California, Office of the President, 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland, CA 94607 via email: president@ucop.edu Board of Regents of the University of California, Office of the Secretary and Chief of Staff to the Regents, 1111 Franklin St., 12th floor, Oakland, CA 94607, via email:Read More →

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In: Negotiations

Today the negotiators closed out all of the brackets on the proposed resolution on cancer for the 70th World Health Assembly (WHA).   The last paragraph to be resolved was the one that UACT followed closely.   In earlier versions of the text, the paragraph called for transparency of prices and R&D costs, access gaps, and a feasibility study of delinkage.  In the final version, all of this was watered down, due to drug company lobbying, but there remains sufficient mandate for the WHO to do quite a bit, depending upon the views of the new WHO DG, who will be elected on Tuesday.  SpecificRead More →

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In: Actions, Negotiations

On May 3, 2017,  UACT was among 29 civil society organizations and 33 health professionals, activists, and economists — including Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz — asking delegates to the World Health Assembly (WHA) to support a feasibility study on the progressive delinkage of the costs of research and development from the price of cancer medicines. A copy of the letter is available here. WHA-letter-on-delinkage-study-3May2017Read More →

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In: Meetings

On Friday, 20 January 2017, thanks to the support of the Shuttleworth Foundation flash grant, the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT) in collaboration with Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) hosted a technical workshop on proposals for a Cancer Innovation Fund (CIF). The half day meeting was held at the World Council of Churches (WCC), from 9AM to 1PM. The meeting itself with a discussion of the burden of disease and the challenges of providing “access to medicine for all,” followed by a presentation of the Cancer Innovation Fund, first as a concept, to expand access to new drugs for cancer, and then as two possibleRead More →