Medicines Patent Pool licences for every patented cancer drug on the WHO list
Companies can license their patents to generic makers for poorer countries through a UN-backed pool, as happened for HIV. Only one cancer drug has been licensed so far; the whole essential list should be.
The Medicines Patent Pool signed its first oncology licence in 2022 (Novartis, nilotinib) covering a limited set of countries. Several patented oncology medicines are on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (and more will be added), including targeted therapies and checkpoint inhibitors, with generic and biosimilar manufacturers in India and China able to supply them. The proposal is a coordinated push, backed by the WHO and funders, for voluntary licences on all patented EML oncology medicines covering at least all low- and lower-middle-income countries, with technology transfer for biologics.
- Prices and value · New cancer drugs routinely cost over $150,000 a year, often for months of benefit. Systems cannot afford them and patients go bankrupt.
- Most of the world has almost no cancer care · Seven in ten cancer deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries, where radiotherapy, pathology, surgery and drugs are scarce.
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not linked directly; found by shared links- IdeaTie WHO essential-medicines listing to a published tiered price and supply pledge
Shares Imatinib, Prices and value, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
- IdeaPooled procurement and voluntary licensing for essential cancer medicines in low-income countries
Shares Imatinib, Prices and value, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
- IdeaA joint price negotiation bloc for middle-income countries, modelled on Beneluxa
Shares Prices and value, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
- IdeaBuy out the patent on a curative cancer drug and sell it at generic prices
Shares Prices and value, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
- IdeaGrant extra exclusivity only in exchange for binding low prices in poorer countries
Shares Prices and value, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
- IdeaPooled international procurement of essential adult cancer medicines
Shares Imatinib, Prices and value, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
- IdeaLimit secondary patents and pay-for-delay so cancer generics arrive on time
Shares Imatinib, Prices and value.
- IdeaPublicly funded trials of lower and less frequent doses of expensive cancer drugs
Shares Osimertinib, Prices and value.