This paper examines how the courts in three developing countries (Kenya, South Africa, and India) have addressed the tension between patent rights on pharmaceutical products and the right to health. The paper begins by examining the nature of the relationship between patent rights and the right...

This paper advances that WHO Member States, having agreed to the objectives of advancing equity and solidarity for future pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, now must operationalize these. The paper offers suggestions for the ongoing WHO processes of: 1) review of recommendations...

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely tested humanity, revealing the need to develop and improve the medical, economic, managerial, and IT components of vaccine management systems. The vaccine lifecycle includes vaccine research and development, production, distribution, and vaccination of the...

We investigate the effects of the introduction of a population-wide Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination program on the vaccine take-up of the targeted group of 15-year-old girls and their older sisters. For identification, we rely on a regression discontinuity design and high-quality Danish...

Peoples' willingness to vaccinate is critical to combating the COVID-19 pandemic. We devise a representative experiment to study how the design of the vaccine approval procedure affects public attitudes towards vaccination. Compared to an Emergency Use Authorization, choosing the more thorough...

In the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have, among other measures, mandated the use of COVID certificates to prove vaccination, recovery or a recent negative test, and have required individuals to show certificates to access shops, restaurants, and education or workplaces. While arguments for and...

In this paper we empirically analyze the effect of the vaccinations against the SARS-CoV-2 virus on the Covid-19 pandemic for European countries from February 2021 to February 2022 with weekly data. We perform panel fixed effects estimations, GMM estimations and nonlinear penalized spline...

Millions of people refuse COVID-19 vaccination. Using original data from two surveys in nine OECD countries, we analyze the determinants of anti-vax intentions in December 2020 and show that half of the anti-vax individuals were vaccinated by summer 2021. Vaccinations were more likely among...

This working paper provides a statistical analysis of 74 patent families which cover subject matter relevant to ten COVID-19 vaccines. These vaccines have accounted for 99% of the global COVID-19 vaccine production as of 31 December 2021, comprising over ten billion doses. Eight of them, namely...

The use of TRIPS flexibilities by WTO members involves interpretation of the obligations under TRIPS which can be challenged under the WTO dispute settlement system. Mutually agreed solutions, panel or Appellate Body decisions adopted in such disputes can thus impact the scope of TRIPS...

This paper empirically analyzes the impact of leadership communication on the COVID-19 vaccination rate using a quasi-experimental design. Based on a speech of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, we examine how political leaders can in uence the willingness to get vaccinated of a country's...

We apply a novel crowdsourcing approach to provide rapid insights on the most promising interventions to promote uptake of COVID-19 booster vaccines. In the first stage, international experts proposed 46 unique interventions. To reduce noise and potential bias, in the second stage, experts and...

While the world faces unprecedented COVID-19 case numbers, vaccination rates in many countries are stagnating. A differentiated understanding of the concerns of the unvaccinated population seems urgently needed to design successful communication strategies. We conducted an original survey...

This study examines the variations within Asia of two exceptions to patent rights that are commonly justified under Article 30 of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement), namely the research and experimentation...

This report provides an analysis of patents covering medicines in trials to treat COVID-19. The aim of the report is to support national patent offices and interested parties in developing countries with information that can serve as guidance for the examination of the claims contained in...

In the context of a health emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic, the global availability of and access to vaccines are imperative. This research paper provides an analysis from the perspective of international political economy, of the financing of COVID-19 vaccines and of the market strategies...

Background: Using choice microdata (N=2723) across the USA, this paper analyzes elicited acceptance of hypothetical COVID-19 vaccines. Methods: The hypothetical vaccines in a choice experiment were described in terms of effectiveness, days for antibodies to develop, duration of protection, risk...

Virtual cross-border medical tourism allows many residents in the United States to purchase brand name medicines from companies in Mexico without travelling there. Monthly economic reports indicate that the online brand name pharmaceutical product prices in Mexico are noticeably lower than the...

Many countries have secured larger quantities of COVID-19 vaccines than their populace is willing to take. This abundance and variety of vaccines created a historical moment to understand vaccine hesitancy better. Never before were more types of vaccines available for an illness and the...

Peoples' willingness to vaccinate is critical to combating the COVID-19 pandemic. We devise a representative experiment to study how the design of the vaccine approval procedure affects public attitudes towards vaccination. Compared to an Emergency Use Authorization, choosing the more thorough...

Using recent data on the unvaccinated across U.S. states, this paper focuses on the determinants of vaccine hesitancy related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that more prosperous states and states with more elderly and physicians have lower vaccine hesitancy. There was some evidence of...

Should the intellectual property rights on the first Covid-19 vaccines be temporarily lifted in applying the Trade-Related Aspect of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) flexibility? Is it right to grant the first generation of Covid-19 vaccines a special treatment from an IPR perspective? On what...

This paper empirically examines the economic effects of COVID-19 vaccine rollouts using a cross-country daily database of vaccinations and high-frequency indicators of economic activity - nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions, carbon monoxide (CO) emissions, and Google mobility indices - for a sample...

The paper discusses the flexibilization of the sui generis system of supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) under European law recently introduced to allow for the manufacturing, stockpiling and export of covered products. Against this background, it examines the viability under the...

The World Trade Organization (WTO) linked intellectual property protection with trade. The WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), however, included a number of public health flexibilities in order to provide latitude to the Member States to...

We use exogenous variation in Social Security payments created by the Social Security benefits notch to estimate how retirees' use of prescription medications responds to changes in their incomes. In contrast to estimates obtained using ordinary least squares, instrumental variables estimates...

The aim of the work is to develop scientific and methodological approaches to modelling the optimal strategy to increase the competitiveness of pharmacy chains (PC), which belong to different clusters.Materials and methods. The algorithm for determining the optimal strategy for increasing the...

We examine the role of consumption externalities in the demand for pharmaceuticals at both the brand level and over a therapeutic class of drugs. These effects emerge when use of a drug by others affects its value, and/or conveys information abut efficacy and safety to patients and physicians....

This study uses a stepwise regression model to measure the efficacy of vaccination in reducing COVID-19 case rates through 8/10/21. In order to hold other covariants constant, variables like density, poverty, and governmental stringency were also included in the regression tests. The statistical...

We analyze the effects on consumers of an extreme policy experiment -- Napsterizing' pharmaceuticals -- whereby all patent rights on branded prescription drugs are eliminated for both existing and future prescription drugs without compensation to the patent holders. The question of whether this...

The opioid crisis has implications for firms which must now contend with a lower supply of workers. Consistent with a labor shortage explanation, we find a negative effect of instrumented opioid prescriptions on subsequent individual employment. Similarly, we show a negative relationship between...

Authority for national judiciaries to issue permanent and preliminary injunctions is required by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Articles 44 and 50. But the TRIPS Agreement does not require the issuance of injunctions in any particular...