Improving the safety and security of the pharmaceutical supply chain

This paper discusses various techniques that may be used to combat counterfeiting in the pharmaceutical supply chain. These include the use of electronic pedigrees (to ensure the integrity of the supply chain), together with mass-serialization (to provide for a unique lifecycle history of each individual package) and authentication of the product (to check for any discrepancies in the various attributes of the product and its packaging are as intended for that individual package). Management of the pedigree process and product authentication is discussed in some detail, together with various other learnings from the Drug Security Network, including identification of some remaining vulnerabilities and suggestions for tightening these loopholes. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

A Primer on ACTA What Europeans Should Fear about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

The European Commission recently published the first official draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The article describes the institutional background of the negotiations on ACTA and its relationship to the existing legal framework. The civil enforcement provisions and the Internet chapter are compared with the international and European instruments in the field. For the most part, ACTA will not oblige EU member states to enact rules that go beyond the already established European standards. But stricter rules could be implemented regarding injunctions against non-infringing intermediaries, strict liability rules for damages, and ex parte measures in preliminary proceedings. According to the published draft, the termination of user accounts in the case of repeated intellectual property infringement will not be mandatory for member ACTA states.

EU Commission: Comments on the “Opinion of European Academics on Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement”

The “Opinion of European Academics on Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” (ACTA) of February 11, 2011, was published in 2 JIPITEC 65 (2011). Signed by more than 25 law professors and academics from across Europe who specialize in the field, this opinion addressed the following concern: Although it is uncontested that the infringement of intellectual property rights, especially in the Internet, prejudices the legitimate interests of right holders, it is still very controversial in Europe and abroad whether the enforcement standards of ACTA are balanced. The European Commission, DG Trade, has now published a document with detailed comments on the Opinion. The comments, which are also available on the website of the European Commission [http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/ html/147853.htm], are republished here with the kind permission of the European Commission.

Buyer beware : the danger of purchasing pharmaceuticals over the Internet : hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Eighth Congress, second session, June 17 and July 22, 2004.

Shipping list no.: 2005-0145-P.

Desenvolvimento de método para discriminação entre marcas de uísque e identificação de adulteração por espectroscopia UV-Vis e PLS-DA

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Química, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Química, 2015.

Firms’ knowledge search and local knowledge externalities in innovation performance

We use an augmented version of the UK Innovation Surveys 4–7 to explore firm-level and local area openness externalities on firms’ innovation performance. We find strong evidence of the value of external knowledge acquisition both through interactive collaboration and non-interactive contacts such as demonstration effects, copying or reverse engineering. Levels of knowledge search activity remain well below the private optimum, however, due perhaps to informational market failures. We also find strong positive externalities of openness resulting from the intensity of local interactive knowledge search—a knowledge diffusion effect. However, there are strong negative externalities resulting from the intensity of local non-interactive knowledge search—a competition effect. Our results provide support for local initiatives to support innovation partnering and counter illegal copying or counterfeiting. We find no significant relationship between either local labour quality or employment composition and innovative outputs.