About

The World Health Organization estimates that each year 10 million people die simply because they cannot get access to medicines that do already exist. Often their price is out of reach for these people and poor patients rely on affordable generic medicines produced by countries like India. Backed by their big multinational pharma companies, industrialized countries are pushing for aggressive trade policies that focus on Intellectual Property (IP) protection and harm the supply and production of generic medicines. The attack is taking various forms but with a single handed objective: Pushing for TRIPS plus provisions through Free Trade Agreements, international treaties, border measures etc.  The impact of these treaties and measures is devastating and results in loss of millions of lives in absence of affordable medicines.

Furthermore, this IP-centered approach to drug development has failed to create sufficient innovation, especially for health problems in developing countries. An R&D system that wants to address these problems has to delink development expenses from the final product price and its priorities should be guided by the global burden of disease and not profit maximization.

This blog is a platform for exchange and a comprehensive source of information, providing articles, opinions, documents, news reports, pictures, and videos on the latest international developments that can have animpact on access to medicines. This includes on-going bilateral trade negotiations such as the India-EU FTA, TTIP or TPP, international treaties like TRIPS, trends in national IP laws and approaches to create an R&D system produces more innovation and addresses the needs of the poor. Your contribution is key! Help us by writing articles and sharing information on access-related topics:

donttradeourlivesaway@gmail.com