Analysis: Why has the price of this cancer medicine risen and fallen by over a thousand percent since 2016?

Posted in: Access to Medicines, Healthcare system, Latest

Lenalidomide is an important medicine used for the treatment of multiple myeloma – a type of bone marrow cancer that is not curable and typically requires long-term, ongoing treatment. Over the last decade, the price of this drug has fluctuated dramatically in South Africa and patients and their doctors have gone to extreme lengths to access it. Catherine Tomlinson unpacks the remarkable recent history of lenalidomide.

Do we need the law to provide for a regular clinical medical procedure such as abortion?

Posted in: Access to Medicines, Latest, Reproductive Health, SRHR

With abortion services now available through telemedicine and the increasing practice of self-managed abortion, Marion Stevens asks if abortion law still has any relevance given these practices.

Breakthrough hepatitis C medicines remain in regulatory limbo

Posted in: Latest

Over the last decade the treatment of hepatitis C, a virus that can infect and damage the liver, has been revolutionised by a new class of medicines called direct acting antivirals. Catherine Tomlinson investigates the regulatory obstacles that are limiting access to these breakthrough medicines in South Africa.