Recapping Section 48D (qualifying therapeutic discovery project credit) − Will it be extended?

Public–private partnerships in addressing counterfeit medicines: The development of the Partnership for Safe Medicines and the Partnership for Safe Medicines-India

The global drug supply chain has resulted in tremendous vulnerabilities. Despite individual country efforts, both developed and resource-poor countries have experienced tremendous challenges with ensuring safety of the drug supply. In this piece, the formation of a novel public–private partnership (PPP), the Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM), is described to illustrate the issues involved in creation of a successful stakeholder-based PPP. It then expands this discussion to the unique concerns when establishing global PPPs, describing the formation of the PSM-India. The formation of these partnerships may guide future efforts to create PPPs to address other public health and patient safety issues.

Global governance: Promoting biodiversity and protecting indigenous communities against biopiracy

Many potentially useful medicines arise from developing countries’ biodiverse environments as well as from indigenous community knowledge. This bioprospecting has become an important strategy in drug discovery and development. However, global intellectual property rules have resulted in biopiracy, where public and private entities have exploited natural and ethnic resources without benefit sharing with indigenous peoples. Sovereign-based approaches have not led to adequate biodiversity management. There is tremendous opportunity for public-private partnerships to fill this void. Coupling pharmaceutical companies with indigenous peoples, civil society organizations, and country academics, long term, trust-based relationships can provide equitable benefits sharing and effective biodiversity management.