From misappropriating IP to taxation without representation and poor pandemic management, what’s to like about the WHO? My recent piece in the Financial Post, here.
Reality Check
Here is the second of two papers I’ve written on Canada’s dysfunctional drug pricing system. This one takes a wider view of the intellectual deception and myths that sustain our self-defeating approach to the pharmaceutical industry.
Richard C. Owens: On IP appropriation, just say no to the WHO
The WHO, presumably trying to ensure we’ll be less prepared for the next pandemic even than this one, is considering requiring intellectual property rights to vaccines and treatments to be overridden in the event of another public health crisis. The op-ed is here.
Opinion: Time to decide: Do we want foreign R&D or not?
My op-ed, with the redoubtable Nigel Rawson, on impediments to life sciences investment in Canada.
Richard C. Owens: On vaccine patents, the logic of bandits
Perhaps private enterprise and intellectual property have never served us so well as during the COVID-19 pandemic when, with sudden vaccines and numerous new therapies, the life sciences industry saved the world. In spite of that, short-sighted and spiteful people argue for seizing the intellectual property, of all types, relating to COVID-19 vaccines, therapies and devices through a World Trade Organization intellectual property waiver. In the Financial Post, I write why this is a bad idea. My op-ed is here.
2020 Hindsight
Here’s my piece for the National Post, reflecting on the lessons of 2020.