“We hope the positive elements of the intellectual property in the EU-India trade agreement serve as a template for other countries, enabling them to resist pressure during trade negotiations and safeguard access to affordable medicines,” added Sarathi Rajendran, Executive Director, MSF South Asia.
“We call on Government of India to ensure careful implementation of the enforcement and trade secret provisions which will be crucial to maintaining these hard-earned gains,” warned Roshan Joseph, Legal and Policy Advisor, MSF Access.
"After two decades of determined resistance by affected communities and civil society, this moment marks a hard-fought victory. The exclusion of data exclusivity and patent term extension from Intellectual Property chapter are not abstract legal victories: they ensure that medicines do not remain out of reach for years after patents expire." Loon Gangte, President, Delhi Network of Positive People
The intellectual Property chapter of this trade deal largely preserves India’s public health safeguards and does not include any harmful provisions that go beyond the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS agreement, such as data exclusivity or patent term extensions.
In 2011, more than 3,000 people marched in India to oppose harmful provisions that could have been included in EU–India free trade agreement and threatened access to affordable medicines. Fifteen years later, after two decades of sustained advocacy, those were excluded from the final deal.
👎Some provisions may impact generic competition and hence require careful consideration.
Read our full reaction: msfaccess.org/dnp-and-msf-...
India-EU free trade agreement full text has been released and the intellectual property chapter:
👍Largely preserves India’s public health safeguards and doesn't go beyond @wto.org TRIPS agreement
🛑 BUT 🛑
In 2014, I visited eastern DRC, where @msf.org teams were treating sleeping sickness - the only available treatment was a drug so toxic it killed 1 in 20 patients. In 2026 I'm so proud that, thanks to @dndi.org, patients can be cured with a single dose of a groundbreaking new oral drug, acoziborole.
🚀 Huge news for people living with #sleepingsickness!
Acoziborole, a one-day, single-dose oral treatment developed with Sanofi, has received a positive opinion from @ema.europa.eu for the treatment of the most common form of sleeping sickness.
👉 bit.ly/46ZFpEi
Thanks @madhupai.bsky.social for the spotlight on TB in Europe. Additionally, lack of access to treatment due to unavailability, high prices, and fragmented supply of TB medicines remains a major challenge. Critical DR-TB meds are exorbitantly priced in the region: some over 100x than in LMICs!
From outbreaks to pandemics, MSF has repeatedly seen patients and communities, who contribute vital samples, data and clinical participation to lifesaving innovations, being denied access to the very products they help make possible. PABS system must guarantee access for all.
Read MSF’s recommendations for a strong WHO Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system calling for reliable, equitable and accountable access to vaccines, diagnostics and treatments developed from shared samples and data. msfaccess.org/ensuring-col...
Weakening safeguards for research participants sends a dangerous global signal — especially as countries negotiate at the WHO on an agreement on research and access during health emergencies.
MSF has already warned that this law marks a serious rollback of protections for people who volunteer in clinical trials and has urged the Brazilian government to reverse course msfaccess.org/msf-denounce...
👉 @msfbrasil.bsky.social is seeking to intervene in a Supreme Court case challenging Brazil’s new law on research, which limits the right of clinical trial participants to receive free access to medicines developed from the studies they joined.
Vaccines: Most un- and under-vaccinated children live in fragile, conflict-affected contexts, where systemic barriers keep vaccination coverage low. Governments, donors and health actors must ramp up immunisation in these settings and ensure funding gaps do not compromise equity.
NCDs: The UN political declaration is promising, but diabetes targets are missing. Now, access to lifesaving tools like insulin pens, glucose monitoring tools & antipsychotics must be ensured and added to the Essential Medicines List.
Mental health: Across our projects, we continue to see the urgent need for better access to mental health care and essential medicines — especially oral and long-acting antipsychotics— particularly in low-resource and emergency settings.
AMR: The updated Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance is a welcome step. Now, it must tackle inequities by closing access gaps in diagnostics and antibiotics, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
MSF representatives addressed critical issues in fragile settings at the @who.int Executive Board #EB158 this week, calling for urgent action on:
🔹Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
🔹Mental health
🔹Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs)
🔹Vaccines
Read the statements: msfaccess.org/msf-statemen...
...and the harmful consequences of the Trump administration’s drive to reshape US foreign assistance have only just started to unfold.
Great read: an MSF reflection on antimicrobial evidence gaps and implementation needs in humanitarian settings, grounded in MSF's work in fragile contexts.
Why is #insulin, an essential and lifesaving medication that’s existed for over 100 years, still priced, patented, and distributed like a 💎luxury good💎?
Listen as our advocacy advisor, Candice Sehoma, unpacks it on this #podcast episode: open.spotify.com/episode/6p39...
From Forest to Factory analyzes global supply chains for 2 critical vaccine adjuvants, QS-21 and MPL — used in vaccines for malaria, shingles, RSV, & a leading tuberculosis vaccine candidate. Read the full report here: www.treatmentactiongroup.org/publication/...
Managing NCDs like #diabetes while living through conflict or displacement can be challenging, especially if access to the medical tools you need is disrupted.
Access to medical tools to manage NCDs and mental health conditions should not be a luxury.
msfaccess.org/sanas-story-...
Yesterday, 175 governments pledged to accelerate responses to NCDs & mental health.
Now they must take concrete actions to ensure everyone has affordable access to the medical tools they need.
msfaccess.org/governments-...
Do you know how #algorithms can help diagnose the world's deadliest infectious disease?
Find out in our latest newsletter 👇
msfaccess.org/newsletter/a...
Along with 10 other civil society organisations, we sent an open letter to the European Parliament’s Committee on Public Health, sharing recommendations to ensure that the Critical Medicines Act advances equitable access for all.
msfaccess.org/cso-open-let...
Caroline Scopel, Susana van der Ploeg, Marcela Cristina Fogaça Vieira, Eloan dos Santos Pinheiro at the roundtable “Opposing Pharmaceutical Patents in Brazil: Political and Technical Strategies for Access to Medicines,” organized by GTPI/Abia at the Abrascão health congress, Brazil.
Marcela Cristina Fogaça Vieira presenting the Patent Opposition Database at the Abrascão health congress in Brazil during the roundtable “Opposing Pharmaceutical Patents in Brazil: Political and Technical Strategies for Access to Medicines.”
Yesterday, at Abrascão, Brazil's largest public health congress, MSF Access' Marcela Vieira explored how patent monopolies raise prices, limit access to health products, and deepen health inequities...
and she shared a way to challenge them: www.patentoppositions.org
Novo Nordisk discontinues key insulin products in EU/EEA for commercial reasons: “Yet another unacceptable example of pharmaceutical corporations putting profits before people’s health.”
msfaccess.org/msf-responds...
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