Lauren Kane recently published a short piece on the Ideas in ALL blog, entitled: “High Priced Medicines, Intellectual Property Rights, and Access Barriers: Médicins Sans Frontières Report Calls for Better Access to Tuberculosis Medicines in Europe” (17 October 2025). This blog article examines the findings of a recent report published by Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF): “Bridging the Gap: Securing Access to Essential TB Medicines in the EU and EEA” in June 2025. Against a backdrop of increasing TB incidence in Europe, this report highlighted various challenges faced in relation to securing access to effective and affordable TB medicines in Europe, including high prices. Specifically, the blog article focuses on the role of intellectual property rights in access to medicines, including TB medicines. Moreover, it also explores potential avenues identified by MSF to address such access issues, including challenging secondary patents over essential TB medicines. Ultimately, it makes the case for greater consideration of and embedding of public interests within access to medicines frameworks.
The potential for intellectual property rights such as patents to be used over medicines in a manner contributing to high prices, and how this affects patients’ interests, is part of ongoing research conducted within the ERC funded PatentsInHumans project, led by Prof Aisling McMahon (PI).
Lauren Kane is a research assistant on the PatentsInHumans project, based in the ALL Institute. As part of this role, Lauren is currently assisting with research in relation to the human rights implications of patented health technologies related to the human body.
This research was conducted as part of the PatentsInHumans project. You can find out more about the PatentsInHumans project by visiting the project website: www.patentsinhumans.eu or by watching this short video.