Access to medicines: Gavi must ensure more children get new, more affordable pneumonia vaccine

Geneva, 21 January 2020 — As Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, starts to commemorate its 20th year and launches a new fundraising appeal, the international medical humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) stressed that more must be done to make sure the 55 million children who do not have access to the pneumonia vaccine … Read more

MSF: $262 million subsidy should not go to pharma giants Pfizer and GSK for pneumonia vaccine

New Delhi – Ahead of this week’s board meeting of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in New Delhi, India, Doctors without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) called on board members to immediately stop paying out funds from a remaining US$262 million subsidy to the pharmaceutical corporations Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for the pneumococcal vaccine. MSF called for … Read more

MSF and TB activists disrupt opening of TB conference to protest drug corporations keeping life-saving medicines from people

Newer medicines for DR-TB are desperately needed, but barriers to access, including high prices, keep them out of reach for most people around the world. Hyderabad, 30 October – Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) joined tuberculosis (TB) activists to disrupt the opening ceremony of the 50th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Hyderabad today, … Read more

MSF urges PM Modi not to make any trade commitments to US threatening access to medicines

Ahead of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US to discuss a ‘trade-package’ with the US President Donald Trump, Médecins Sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders (MSF) urges the Indian government to not make any commitments regarding intellectual property, as it will impact millions of people who rely on affordable generic medicines produced in … Read more

Gilead Sciences fails on promise to expand access to lifesaving drug for people living with HIV

Inaction by US pharmaceutical corporation Gilead to follow through on its so-called ‘access initiative’ leaves people unable to access a vital drug to treat a deadly infection. Delhi/Geneva – Pharmaceutical corporation Gilead Sciences has failed to deliver on promises to make an important drug available to people suffering from a life-threatening HIV-related infection, the medical humanitarian … Read more

MSF: U.S. Special 301 report undermines efforts to lower medicine prices globally

On the eve of World Intellectual Property Day, the United States Trade Representative released its annual “Special 301 Report.” Developing countries like India and Malaysia once again face unfair pressure from the US government over the measures these countries have taken to try to protect access to medicines. The Special 301 report is an annual … Read more

Tuberculosis: TB activists challenge Johnson & Johnson patent application on bedaquiline in India

Mumbai/Cape Town – Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is supporting a patent challenge filed in India this week by two tuberculosis survivors, to prevent pharmaceutical corporation Johnson & Johnson (J&J) from extending its monopoly on the tuberculosis drug bedaquiline. Nandita Venkatesan from Mumbai, India and Phumeza Tisile from Khayelitsha, South Africa, who filed the patent … Read more

Tuberculosis: TB activists challenge Johnson & Johnson patent application on bedaquiline in India

Mumbai/Cape Town – Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is supporting a patent challenge filed in India this week by two tuberculosis survivors, to prevent pharmaceutical corporation Johnson & Johnson (J&J) from extending its monopoly on the tuberculosis drug bedaquiline. Nandita Venkatesan from Mumbai, India and Phumeza Tisile from Khayelitsha, South Africa, who filed the … Read more

ASEAN and India urged not to trade away people’s lives in trade agreement

RCEP trade deal could cut medicines lifeline for people in developing countries Bangkok/Geneva – As the sixteen countries negotiating Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement meet in Bangkok this week for another round of closed-door negotiations, public health experts and the international medical humanitarian organization – Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warn that the … Read more

People living with hepatitis C and HIV challenge evergreening patents on lifesaving hepatitis C drugs in India

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) welcomes two patent oppositions filed by Delhi Network of Positive People (DNP+) before the Indian patent office, challenging additional patent claims by US pharmaceutical corporation-Gilead Sciences for the hepatitis C medicines sofosbuvir and velpatasvir. These oppositions challenge Gilead’s patent applications for the tablet formulation of the fixed-dose combination of … Read more