An Interview with André Heller, MSF head of mission in South Sudan Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) work in Yida camp is proving effective. MSF has reduced the mortality rate in the camp, which is now the home of families seeking refuge from conflict and food insecurity in Sudan. However, living conditions remain a concern, as … Read more
NEW DELHI/GENEVA/NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 11, 2012—The Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis heads to the Indian Supreme Court today in New Delhi, in a final bid to undermine a key public health safeguard in Indian patent law specifically designed to prevent drug companies from abusive patenting practices that keep medicine prices high, the international medical humanitarian organization … Read more
Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis heads to the Indian Supreme Court today in New Delhi, in a final bid to undermine a key public health safeguard in Indian patent law specifically designed to prevent drug companies from abusive patenting practices which keep medicine prices high. If successful, the move would have a devastating impact on access … Read more
KABUL/NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 10, 2012—Following a major explosion today in the city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, more than two dozen people arrived at a surgical hospital run by the international medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) / Doctors Without Borders. Thirteen people who suffered severe blast injuries were dead on arrival at the … Read more
Geneva/New Delhi, September 3, 2012 – German pharmaceutical company Bayer today heads to India’s Intellectual Property Appellate Board in Chennai in a bid to overturn a compulsory licence that has allowed more affordable generic versions of sorafenib tosylate, a cancer drug patented by Bayer, to be produced in the interests of public health. International humanitarian … Read more
19 April 2012- This week, MSF opened a new clinic in Moreh, a small rural town in Chandel district in the Indian state of Manipur that is on the border with Myanmar. The specialised clinic offers free medical treatment and counselling for people living with HIV/AIDS and drug resistant tuberculosis. People living with HIV/AIDS and … Read more
Groundbreaking Move Sets Precedent for Overcoming Drug Price Barriers Delhi/Geneva – March 12, 2012 – In a landmark case, the Indian Patent Office has issued the first-ever compulsory license in India to a generic drug manufacturer. This effectively ends German pharmaceutical company Bayer’s monopoly in India on the drug sorafenib tosylate, used to treat kidney … Read more
Many patients with drug-resistant TB that arrive at MSF’s clinic in Mumbai have received incorrect or inadequate treatment in the private sector. Although this form of TB is curable if treated early enough, some of the patients, like ‘Shanti’, are in such bad condition that their lives cannot be saved. Like many other sufferers of … Read more
Governments meeting at the World Health Organization’s Executive Board (WHO EB) this week must seize the opportunity to improve serious shortcomings in the ‘Decade of Vaccines’ blueprint that will drive the global community’s vaccines response in the next few years. If they fail to do so, key reasons why children continue to be missed by … Read more
A study on generic antiretrovirals ignores fact that patents prevent use of more affordable patient-friendly combination drugs. The just-released study led by Massachusetts General Hospital in the Annals of Internal Medicine stating that switching patients from the branded combination antiretroviral ‘Atripla’ to generics could be therapeutically ‘less effective’ is misleading and misses a big part … Read more