South African IP policy prioritizes 'needs over profits'

News that the South African government is to release a new intellectual property (IP) policy has been praised by campaigners.

Advocacy group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the Fix the Patent Laws (FTPL) campaign coalition had argued for years that the policy of ‘blindly handing out patents’ had to stop to allow South Africans to access the medicines they need.

"It has been a long journey ... to move toward patent law reforms that are in the public interest and seek to increase access to affordable medicines through generic competition"