HAI Europe calls on EU Commission to consider social aspects of IP directive

Health Action International (HAI) Europe, a network aiming to increase access to essential medicines, says it has identified numerous shortcomings in the European Commission’s Report and Analysis on the Directive on Intellectual Property (IP) Enforcement, and calls on the Commission to consider the broader social impact of the Directive’s measure, namely access to medicines.

In its response to the consultation on the Report on the IP Enforcement Directive, submitted last week, HAI Europe underlines the Commission’s failure to consider the public health dimension of IP enforcement. Glaring omissions reveal how the analysis process failed to solicit the views of a broad range of stakeholders, namely civil society, while granting business stakeholders multiple opportunities to contribute, it says.