Licks Attorneys' Government Affairs & International Relations Blog

On October 23rd, Brazil, Russia,
India, China, and South Africa, the BRICS, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on health regulation during the 5th Meeting of BRICS Health Regulatory Authorities. The meeting took place at the Pan-American Health Organization’s headquarters in Brasilia, Brazil.

During a seminar hosted by the Brazilian Association of the Pharmaceutical Research Industry (INTERFARMA) last week in Brasilia, the Minister of Health, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, said the country should never compulsory license drug patents, since this practice harms both the inventiveness and the investments made in R&D by private companies. This sets a new tone on the government’s position towards intellectual property for pharmaceutical products.

The bill intents to regulate “the management, the organization, the decision process and the social control” of the federal regulatory agencies in Brazil.  

The Brazilian Senate’s floor approved on May 30, 2019 the text of the General Law of Regulatory Agencies (Bill S. 52 of 2013 or PLS 52/2013), which establishes a variety of measures that aim to guarantee the transparency and autonomy of these institutions, as well as to avoid the interference of private sector interests on regulatory requirements. The bill also deals with the interaction between regulatory agencies and competition agencies, as well as the operational interaction between regulatory agencies and federal, state, and municipal regulatory bodies.

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