In the decade since the Doha Declaration was adopted, significant progress has been made in addressing problems associated with innovation and access to medicines, including through expanded financial support for procurement and distribution of treatments and vaccines and the establishment of...

The response of the international community to the COVID-19 pandemic has been characterized by a lack of transparency, substantial gaps in scientific understanding, inconsistent communication, lack of capacity for the manufacture of vaccines, substantial gaps in preparedness for diagnostics and...

UNDP first drew attention to the utility of competition law in health care as a tool to facilitate and promote access to health technologies in 2014. It published ‘Using Competition Law to Promote Access to Health Technologies: A guidebook for low- and middle-income countries’ (the...

Annual worldwide spending on medicines is anticipated to exceed $1.2 trillion by 2016. Developing countries, and particularly so-called emerging markets, will account for a substantial portion of the growth in spending on medicines. A good part of global market demand will be satisfied by...

There are some important reasons why low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) may choose to make greater use of competition law and policy to reduce the cost of treatment. First, multilateral trade rules allow substantial flexibility in the development and application of competition law and...

On August 30, 2003, the member countries of the WTO adopted the Decision on Implementation of Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. This Decision provides flexibility for the export of pharmaceutical products under compulsory license (which flexibility...