To secure a rapid and sufficient supply of vaccines and medicines, the global south has asked for a waiver of intellectual property rights. But despite the gravity of the situation, that is rejected outright by the EU. That should not come as a surprise. A briefing from CEO outlines the EU's traditional role as a staunch defender of big pharma monopolies, and how the push for provisions on 'data exclusivity' in trade agreements with third countries have seeked to undermine even existing flexibility under international rules.

Chemical giant's lobbyists woo MEPs via online wine tasting, just as the battle over pesticides reduction proposed by the European Green Deal heats up. But does this event comply with existing rules on lobbying gifts and events targeting MEPs?

A detailed summary of the findings and conclusions of two extensive reports on research public-private partnerships in the EU: the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and the Bio-Based Industries (BBI) Joint Undertakings.

Despite strong calls from MEPs and the public, ExxonMobil and its lobby groups mobilise enough behind-the-scenes pressure to stop the European Parliament taking away its lobby badges

The biggest pharmaceutical companies have proved to be staunch opponents of sharing technology on COVID vaccines and medicines. In particular, they are fiercely opposed to a proposal to temporarily suspend intellectual property rights on vaccines and medicines for the duration of the pandemic, as proposed by India and South Africa at the World Trade Organization. And after lobby meetings the European Commission basically agreed to the wishes of the pharmaceutical industry.

The self-serving arguments used by big pharma lobbyists at meetings with the European Commission to defend monopoly intellectual property rights on vaccines are demonstrably false. Corporate Europe Observatory has uncovered new documents from December 2020 which reveal how big pharma’s arguments – essentially, to ‘keep the patents in our hands, and trust us to distribute vaccines’ – contrast sharply with the current state-of-affairs: few in low-income countries will be vaccinated any time soon.

Several industry EU lobby groups are about to be entrusted again the privilege of co-deciding how €9.6 billion of public EU research funding should be used, in research areas as essential as healthcare, transportation, energy, biomass-based manufacturing processes or IT infrastructures.

The European Commission proposes to have industry co-decide how €9.6 billion of EU public research money should be used. The Member States now have to decide if they accept expanding the highly problematic model of EU Joint Undertakings, very large industry-driven public-private research partnerships, in the EU’s new research funding programme Horizon Europe.

In this new episode of EU Watchdog Radio we dive into the covert lobby tactics used by the biotechnology industry to get a new generation of GMO’s to be used in agriculture, deregulated in the EU. Why are agrochemical companies like Bayer and Corteva to against having European safety rules? And why is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation financing this lobby-campaign?

CEO and The Good Lobby have written to Mr Koen Lenaerts (President of the Court of Justice of the European Union) to express concern about the fact that ECJ Advocate General Giovanni Pitruzzella participated in an event on vaccine patents co-hosted by a pharmaceutical industry lobby group. The event - an online roundtable on March 22 2021 - was hosted by the Aspen Institute Italy in cooperation with Farmindustria, the Italian pharmaceutical sector lobby group.