Pharma sees a threat in pandemic treaty

The ideas and innovators shaping health care

Oct 17, 2023 View in browser   By Carmen Paun, Evan Peng, Daniel Payne and Erin Schumaker WORLD VIEW The WHO is pushing nations to agree now to share more when the next pandemic hits. | Getty Images A draft international treaty spelling out how nations must cooperate during pandemics would require signatories to temporarily suspend intellectual property rights for needed drugs. That's not going over well with drugmakers. “It would be better to have no pandemic treaty than a bad pandemic treaty.” Thomas Cueni, the director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations POLITICO’s Ashleigh Furlong obtained the draft, which asks signatories to: — commit to temporarily waive intellectual property rights — encourage patent holders to waive or reduce for a limited time the payment of royalties by developing countries — require manufacturers that have received public financing to waive or reduce royalties — encourage patent holders to share with third-party manufacturers information critical to the making of patented products Blowback from the West: The United States has lobbied to make the sharing of intellectual property voluntary, and it’s not clear whether the current language will pass muster. Furlong found strong pushback from high-income countries during the negotiations at the World Health Organization, which is leading the treaty talks. On Monday, German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach told the World Health Summit that limitations on IP rights “would not fly” for Germany or many other European countries. And from pharma: Thomas Cueni, the director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, said the draft was unacceptable. What’s next? The WHO hopes to wrap up the treaty in May.   GO INSIDE THE CAPITOL DOME: From the outset, POLITICO has been your eyes and ears on Capitol Hill, providing the most thorough Congress coverage — from political characters and emerging leaders to leadership squabbles and policy nuggets during committee markups and hearings. We're stepping up our game to ensure you’re fully informed on every key detail inside the Capitol Dome, all day, every day. Start your day with Playbook AM, refuel at midday with our Playbook PM halftime report and enrich your evening discussions with Huddle. Plus, stay updated with real-time buzz all day through our brand new Inside Congress Live feature. Learn more and subscribe here.     WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE San Diego, Calif. | Evan Peng This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. It’s spooky season, as they say, a time of ghosts and the reanimated dead. But this is taking it too far: An ambulance service in England apologized after a patient declared dead later woke up in the hospital, the Guardian reports. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Evan Peng at epeng@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Megan R. Wilson talks with POLITICO health care reporter Ben Leonard, who previews the health care policies Senate committees are considering this week and describes how the House is continuing to work behind the scenes on pending health legislation even as the GOP tries to select a new speaker. Listen to today’s Pulse Check podcast FORWARD THINKING Drones could beat ambulances in delivering naloxone, researchers believe. | Michael Shroyer/AP Photo Drones could one day deliver the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone to people overdosing faster than ambulances. That’s the promise of a proof-of-concept study by researchers from King’s College London showing that drones could have reached 78 percent of the overdose cases studied in an area in northern England within seven minutes, the benchmark for the arrival of emergency services in a life-threatening situation. Ambulances could have arrived in that time in only 14 percent of the cases, according to the study. The researchers looked at opioid overdose deaths that occurred between 2015 and 2019 in the Teesside area of the U.K. They used the location of the overdoses to compare the projected response time of ambulances with that of drones, while considering traffic and weather conditions. They selected 58 cases in which a bystander who could call for and administer emergency naloxone was present. Why it matters: When a person overdoses and stops breathing, every second counts, said Caroline Copeland, the lead author of the study, published in Addiction. “This could make a huge difference to people’s survival,” she said in a statement. About half of the nearly 5,000 drug overdose deaths recorded in England and Wales in 2021, the most recent year for which the data is available, were caused by opioids.   DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO APP: Stay in the know with the POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS – DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID.     LIFESTYLE More Canadians than ever are enjoying an occasional doobie. | AFP via Getty Images If you legalize it, more will toke. Since Canada became the first country in the world to legalize cannabis sales and possession for adults, consumption has spiked, POLITICO’s Paul Demko reports. 22.4 The percentage of Canadians age 15 and older who used marijuana in 2021, according to the most recent data from Statistics Canada How’s that? In 2017, 14.8 percent of Canadians ages 15 and older reported using cannabis within the prior year. By 2021, that figure had climbed more than 50 percent. The biggest spikes in use were among adults 25 and older. Among the 45- to 64-year-old demographic, the share of individuals reporting past-year use nearly doubled to 18.3 percent between 2017 and 2021. The increase wasn't quite as sharp among 25- to 44-year-olds: The share of that group who reported past-year cannabis use swelled from 21.8 percent to 31.2 percent over the same period. But the highest consumption rates were among 18- to 24-year-olds: Just over 30 percent reported past-year use in 2017, while that number rose to 39 percent in 2021. Even so: Among 15-to-17-year-olds — for whom cannabis can affect brain development — the increase was less pronounced. Before legalization, 14.2 percent of those teenagers reported using cannabis in the past 12 months, compared with 15.6 percent in 2021.   Follow us on Twitter Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Daniel Payne @_daniel_payne Ruth Reader @RuthReader Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker Evan Peng @thepngfile   Follow us

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