hepVoice Vol.10 | Page 6

World Hepatitis Alliance Activities s g u r d C s ti ti a ep h ic er en g Shedding light on access to MedsPaL database from the Medicines Patents Pool Knowledge for Change Webinar An Introduction to Access to Generic Hepatitis C Medicines Information on the intellectual property status of medicines is often hard to find, making it difficult to determine where generics are available and the means by which availability has been possible. To fill the void of information, the Medicines Patents Pool (MPP) recently launched a new database called MedsPaL (Medicines Patents and Licenses Database) and for the first time hepatitis C medicines are now included alongside HIV and tuberculosis drugs. The searchable database provides information on patents and licenses for generic production across 101 low- and middle-income countries. Following the success of the first two webinars in the Knowledge for Change series covering access to diagnostics and medicines, we were pleased to deliver the next in the series, ‘An Introduction to Accessing Generic Hepatitis C Medicines’ on 1 November. Featuring experts Erika Duenas, Advocacy Officer, Medicines Patent Pool; Andrew Hill, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Pharmacology, University of Liverpool; Giten Khwairakpam, Project Manager for Community and Policy, TREAT Asia; and Raquel Peck, CEO, WHA, the webinar explored the generics landscape for hepatitis C with discussions on legalities, quality and performance of generics medicines as well as providing examples of how people across the globe are accessing them. Explore the MedsPaL database here Missed our webinar? Watch the recording here 6 hep Voice October 2016 hep Voice October 2016 7