Category: Research Reports
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Pharmaceutical patents and data exclusivity in an age of AI-driven drug discovery and development
Artificial intelligence (AI) stands to drastically reduce both the risks and costs normally associated with the development of new medical products. This could fundamentally reshape pharmaceutical innovation, challenging both the justification for high medicines prices to recoup investment in research and development (R&D) and the market exclusivity systems – including patents and data exclusivity –…
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Has the Indian Patents Act succeeded in ensuring access to affordable medicine?
Prof Biswajit Dhar (in The Leaflet, 16 April 2025) argues that the major flexibilities in the Indian Patent Act – Section 3(d) and the compulsory licensing system – to make medicines affordable, have been under-implemented. As prices of medicines have skyrocketed, secondary patenting has proliferated while compulsory licensing has been invoked only once. In full…
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The ‘ethical recruitment’ of international nurses: Germany’s liberal health worker extractivism
By Tine Hanrieder & Leon Janauschek, 18 Feb 2025 in Review of International Political Economy International institutions increasingly promote ‘ethical recruitment’ as a standard for health worker migration from poor to rich countries. We analyze how this notion is interpreted in a country considered to be an exemplary, ‘ethical’ recruiter of international nurses. In Germany, international…
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Rethinking food security monitoring in crisis
New briefing paper released by FIAN 20 Feb 2025 FIAN International has released a new briefing paper (available in English, Arabic, Spanish, and French) that explores the ongoing issue of ineffective monitoring in situations of crises, including starvation and famine, worldwide, with a specific focus on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system. In…
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Synthesis and Conclusions: Securing technology transfer in the Pandemic Agreement
Suerie Moon’s Synthesis and Conclusions of Geneva Graduate Institute’s Global Health Centre workshop on technology transfer in January 2025. Published in Medicines Law and Policy 12 Feb 2025. Technology transfer has been one of the more politically and technically difficult issues on which to forge consensus in the Pandemic Agreement negotiations. In the wake of…
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The Lancet Commission on Transforming Primary Health Care in the Post-COVID-19 Era
William Chi-Wai Wong, Vivian Lin, Xiaoxuan Fang, Michael Kidd on behalf of the Lancet Commission on Transforming Primary Health Care in the Post-COVID-19 Era. From The Lancet 15 Feb 2025 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)00198-9 Primary health care (PHC) was established as a global priority in the 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration. Four decades later, the 2018 Astana Declaration reaffirmed the call for universal health coverage for all…
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The colonial origins of economics
“The colonial origins of economics” by Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, Surbhi Kesar and Devika Dutt, published in Third World Resurgence. THE recent Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024 was awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson (henceforth AJR). The Nobel committee noted that the laureates ‘have demonstrated the importance of…
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Global Employment Trends for Youth (ILO, 2024)
While the global labour market outlook has improved considerably for young people aged 15 to 24 more than fours years since the onset of theCOVID-19 pandemic, the picture is uneven across the regions. In 2023, 65 million young people aged 15 to 24 (13%) were unemployed worldwide. In 2023, 256 million young people aged 15…
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Private equity takeovers are harming patients
By Merrill Goozner in BMJ 2023;382:p1396, Evidence review suggests that costs rise and quality falls at acquired healthcare providers Private equity investment in healthcare provider institutions reached record highs in recent years in both the US and Europe, with US acquisitions accounting for three quarters of the combined $100bn (£78bn; €91bn) in investment in 2021.12 The…
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Australia gets nickel-and-dimed by Indonesian downstreaming
By James Guild in East Asia Forum on 11 June 2024 Despite soaring nickel prices between 2016 and 2022, Australian nickel miners, such as Wyloo Metals and BHP, have struggled due to a surge in market supply from Indonesia, the world’s largest nickel reserve holder, leading to a fall in nickel prices. While Australian miners…
