Power imbalance between pharmaceutical companies and governments underlies many problems that hamper access to medicines for all. Monopolies and the lack of transparency in the pharmaceutical industry should therefore be countered. This was Wemos’ call during a civil society consultation initiated by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) on the 26th of April.
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Wemos warmly welcomes the US government’s proposal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) for a temporary waiver of patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines. It is now up to the Netherlands and the European Union (EU) to follow suit. This patent waiver – which would temporarily lift patent protections – will give all pharmaceutical companies the right to also produce vaccines. This could be a breakthrough for global access to these vaccines.
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To end the corona pandemic as quickly as possible, we need to maximize the production of Covid-19 vaccines. The few pharmaceutical companies that currently produce safe and effective vaccines, should share their patent rights and knowledge, so other manufacturers can produce vaccines as well. Governments and pharmaceutical companies around the world: make pooling work!
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How can we keep medicines accessible and affordable for everyone in the Netherlands and the rest of the world? Now that the Netherlands has made a remarkably slow start with its Covid-19 vaccination campaign, the topic of access to medicines is again high on the (political) agenda. So how can we improve this access to medicines? Several candidate MPs will discuss this during The Medicines Debate (‘Het Geneesmiddelendebat’ in Dutch) on February 25th, 20:00 at the venue De Balie, which will be broadcast online.
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In a broadcast of De Balie on December 7, Wemos’ global health advocate
Tom Buis conducted a debate with Pia Dijkstra (Member of Parliament D66) and Bart van Zijll Langhout (Vice President Janssen) about the worldwide distribution of a corona vaccine.
It was a much-needed optimistic headline in recent days: the developments around the pharmaceutical company Pfizer’s new COVID-19 vaccine are in the final stages. However, Pfizer has so far refused to give up the vaccine’s patent protection. This limits production and increases the price per vaccine – threatening access and distribution in low- and middle-income countries in particular. On November 20, Wemos’ global health advocate Tom Buis held an interview about this news in the Dutch programme EenVandaag.
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Since the COVID-19 crisis has started, we have seen governments pressuring their own regulatory agencies to speed up the process of marketing authorisation. To make sure that this marketing authorisation process is done independently and transparently, the concept of accountability is key. Over the last year Wemos has conducted a qualitative analysis on the concept of accountability at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the perception hereof for different stakeholders in the process of marketing authorisation. Additionally, Wemos has looked into the risk of bias in Pre-Submission Activities (PSAs). This analysis lead to several policy recommendations in order to improve EMA’s accountability and to have better safeguards regarding risk of bias in PSAs.
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Today the court ruled that the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has to refund the excessive price the company charged for the drug Seroquel to the health insurance company Menzis. The exact amount has yet to be determined. It is the first time that a health insurance company in the Netherlands has sued a pharmaceutical company.
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On 27 August 2020, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate (EZK) responded in a letter to the House of Representatives to the report
‘Overpriced: drugs developed with Dutch Public Funding’ (SOMO / Wemos, May 2019).
New research by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) shows that the German coronavirus test producer Qiagen has been able to dodge millions of euros in tax since 2010 thanks to tax avoidance constructions in Ireland, Luxembourg, the US and Malta. Qiagen is one of the world’s leading producers of coronavirus test kits and is currently benefiting from mass orders from governments around the world. It is one of the major suppliers of COVID-19 test kits in the US. New SOMO research reveals that the biotech giant also received huge amounts of public funding from the US and the Netherlands, among others.
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