Amy Kapczynski

Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Global Health Justice Partnership

Amy Kapczynski is a Professor of Law at Yale Law School, Faculty Co-Director of the Law and Political Economy Project, cofounder of the Law and Political Economy blog, and Faculty Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership. Her research focuses on law and political economy, and theorizes the failures of legal logic and structure that condition contemporary inequality, precarity, and hollowed out democracy.

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Amy Kapczynski

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Shannon Casanova

Education & Curriculum Vitae

J.D., Yale Law School, 2003

M.A., Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, 1998

M. Phil., University of Cambridge, 1997

A.B., Princeton University, 1996

Courses Taught

  • International Intellectual Property Law
  • Law and Social Movements
  • Property
  • Global Health and Justice Practicum
  • Intellectual Property: The Law of Scientific and Cultural Production

Amy Kapczynski is a Professor of Law at Yale Law School, Faculty Co-Director of the Law and Political Economy Project, cofounder of the Law and Political Economy blog, and Faculty Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership. Her research focuses on law and political economy, and theorizes the failures of legal logic and structure that condition contemporary inequality, precarity, and hollowed out democracy. Her primary areas of focus include health justice and the political economy of technology. She has worked closely with social movements involved in campaigns for access to medicines in the U.S. as well as transnationally, and more recently as part of a coalition calling for a Community Health Corps to combat COVID-19. Kapczynski has published widely, including in law reviews, academic journals, op-eds, and journals like the Boston Review. Prior to joining the Yale faculty in 2012, she taught at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Before teaching, Kapczynski served as a law clerk to Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Stephen G. Breyer at the U.S. Supreme Court, and to Judge Guido Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She received her A.B. from Princeton University, M.Phil. from Cambridge University, M.A. from Queen Mary and Westfield College at University of London, and J.D. from Yale Law School. Read more on her recent scholarship.

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PUBLISHED ARTICLES

The Political Economy of Market Power in Pharmaceuticals, 48 Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 215 (2023)

A Conversation between Wendy Brown and Amy Kapczynski, The South Atlantic Quarterly 121:2, Duke University Press, April 1, 2022 (with Wendy Brown) 

Transparency of Regulatory Data across the European Medicines Agency, Health Canada, and US Food and Drug Administration, Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, Vol. 49 No. 3, Fall 2021 (with Alexander C. Egilman, Margaret E. McCarthy, Anita T. Luxkaranayagam, Christopher J. Morten, Matthew Herder, Joshua D. Wallach and Joseph S. Ross. 

Realizing Public Rights Through Government Patent Use, Cambridge University Press, April 21, 2021

The Big Data Regulator, Rebooted: Why and How the FDA Can and Should Disclose Confidential Data on Prescription Drugs and Vaccines, California Law Review, April 2021 (with Christopher J. Morten)

Building a Law-and-Political-Economy Framework: Beyond the Twentieth-Century Synthesis, Yale Law Journal, Apr. 2020 (with Jedediah Britton-Purdy, David Singh Grewal, & K. Sabeel Rahman)

The Law of Informational Capitalism, Yale Law Journal, Mar. 2020 (Review of SHOSHANA ZUBOFF, THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM and JULIE COHEN, BETWEEN TRUTH AND POWER)

Patents, trade and medicines: past, present and future (with Ken Shadlen and Bhaven Sampat), 27 Rev. Int’l Pol. Econ. 75 (2019)

The Right to Medicines in an Age of Neoliberalism, Humanity Journal, April 26, 2019

The Lochnerized First Amendment and the FDA: Toward a More Democratic Political Economy, 118 Columbia L. Rev. Forum 179 (2018)

Dangerous Times: The FDA’s Role in Information Production, Past and Future, 102 Minn. L. Rev. 2357 (2018)

Order without Intellectual Property Law: Open Science in Influenza, 102 Cornell L. Rev. 1539 (2017)

A Prescription for Excessive Drug Pricing: Leveraging Government Patent Use for Health, 18 YALE J. L. & TECH. 275 (2016) (with Hannah Brennan, Christine Monahan & Zain Rizvi)

‘Government Patent Use’: A Legal Approach to Reducing Drug Spending, 35 HEALTH AFFAIRS 791 (2016) (with Aaron Kesselheim)

Innovation Sticks: The Limited Case for Penalizing Failures to Innovate (with Ian Ayres), 81 CHICAGO L. REV. 1781 (2015)

The Continuum of Excludability and the Limits of Patents, 120 YALE L. J. 1900 (2013) (with Talha Syed)

Polymorphs and Prodrugs and Salts (Oh My!): An Empirical Analysis of ‘‘Secondary’’ Pharmaceutical Patents, 7 PLoS e49470 (Dec. 2012) (with Bhaven Sampat and Chan Park)

The Cost of Price: Why and How to Get Beyond Intellectual Property Internalism, 59 UCLA L. REV. 970 (2012)

“Access to Knowledge: A Conceptual Genealogy,” in ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE IN THE AGE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (Zone Press 2010, Gaëlle Krikorian and Amy Kapczynski, eds.)

Harmonization and its Discontents: A Case Study of TRIPS Implementation in India’s Pharmaceutical Sector, 97 CALIF. L. Rev. 1571 (2009)

The Access to Knowledge Mobilization and the New Politics of Intellectual Property, 117 YALE L. J. 804 (2008)

Addressing Global Health Inequities: An Open Licensing Approach for University Innovations, 20 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 1031 (2005) (with Samantha Chaifetz, Zachary Katz, & Yochai Benkler)

Historicism, Progress, and the Redemptive Constitution, 26 CARDOZO L. REV. 1041 (2005)

EDITED BOOKS

ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE IN THE AGE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (Zone Press 2010, Gaëlle Krikorian and Amy Kapczynski, eds.)

RETHINKING LAW (MIT Press, 2022, Amy Kapczynski, ed.)

COMMENTARIES AND OP-EDS

The Great Disconnect: Why are Americans so unhappy about the economy?, The American Prospect, Mar. 22, 2022 (with Jacob S. Hacker) 

Sharing The Knowledge: How President Joe Biden Can Use The Defense Production Act To End The Pandemic Worldwide, Health Affairs Blog, Aug. 6, 2021 (with Zain Rizvi and Jishian Ravinthiran) 

We’ll never reach herd immunity if we don’t vaccinate more non-White people, Wash. Post, Feb. 26, 2021 (with Gregg Gonsalves and David Herman)

How Law Made Neoliberalism, Boston Review Feb. 22, 2021 (with Jedediah Britton-Purdy and David Grewal)

Remdesivir Could be in Short Supply: Here’s a Fix, NY Times, July 28, 2020 (with Paul Biddinger and Rochelle Walensky)

The New Politics of Care, BOSTON REVIEW, Apr. 2020 (with Gregg Gonsalves)

Markets vs. Lives, BOSTON REVIEW, Mar. 2020 (with Gregg Gonsalves)

Alone Against the Virus, BOSTON REVIEW, Mar. 2020 (with Gregg Gonsalves)

To Help Develop The Safest, Most Effective Coronavirus Tests, Treatments, and Vaccines, Ensure Public Access To Clinical Research Data, Health Affairs Blog, Mar. 26, 2020 (with Chris Morten, Joe Ross, and Harlan Krumholz)

Confidentiality Orders and Public Interest in Drug and Medical Device Litigation, JAMA Internal Medicine, Vol. 180 No. 2, 292 (2020) (with Alex Egilman, Aaron Kesselheim, Harlan Krumholz, Joe Ross, and Jeanie Kim)

Free Speech Incorporated, BOSTON REVIEW, Dec. 5, 2019

United States v. Gilead: Can a Lawsuit Yield Better Access To PrEP?, Health Affairs Blog, Nov. 18, 2019 (with Christopher Morten)

Confidentiality Orders in Drug, Device Lawsuits Harm Patients and the Public, StatNews, Nov. 11, 2019 (with Alexander Egilman and Joe Ross)

Assessing Drug Pricing Reform Proposals: The Real Leverage And Benefits Of Competitive Licensing, HEALTH AFFAIRS BLOG, Nov. 4, 2019 (with Christopher Morten)

Political Economy and Human Rights: Paths Forward, Humanity Blog, Oct. 4, 2019 (part of a symposium on my article, The Right to Medicines in an Age of Neoliberalism)

There is no liberal case for Brett Kavanaugh, LA Times, Aug. 1, 2018 (with David Grewal and Issa Kohler-Hausmann)

Clinical Trial Transparency: The FDA Should and Can Do More, Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 45 S2, pp. 33-38, Jan. 10, 2018 (with Jeanie Kim)

Pediatric Exclusivity and Regulatory Authority, Implications of Amgen v HHS, JAMA 2018; 319(1): 21–22 (with Jeanie Kim and Joseph Ross)

Legal Challenges to State Drug Pricing Laws, JAMA, 2018; 319(9):865–866 (with Theodore Lee and Aaron Kesselheim)

Three Things Trump Can Do to Bring Drug Prices “Way Down.”  Wash. Post, Nov. 21, 2017 (with Aaron Kesselheim)

Promotion of Drugs for Off-Label Uses: The US Food and Drug Administration at a Crossroads, JAMA Internal Medicine, Feb. 2017 (with Jeanie Kim)

The TPP and Drug Prices: Not a Settled Matter, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Oct. 28, 2016 (with Bhaven N. Sampat and Kenneth C. Shadlen)

A Simple Way for the Government to Curb Inflated Drug Prices, WASHINGTON POST, May 12, 2016 (with Zain Rizvi and Aaron Kesselheim)

Free Speech and Pharmaceutical Regulation: Fishy Business, JAMA INTERNAL MEDICINE, Mar. 2016

Amy Kapczynski, Resist Pressure at Any Price, BUSINESS TODAY (India), Jan. 17, 2016 (with David Singh Grewal)

The Trans-Pacific Partnership — Is It Bad for Your Health? 373 NEW ENG. J. MED. 201 (2015) (invited “Perspective”)

No Fast Track for Unfair Trade Deals, HUFFINGTON POST, June 11, 2015 (with Judith Resnik)

Intellectual Property’s Leviathan, 77 LAW & CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS 131 (2014)

Going Local in the Era of TRIPS Implementation, in BALANCING HEALTH AND WEALTH: THE BATTLE OVER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND ACCESS TO MEDICINES IN LATIN AMERICA 263 (Rochelle C. Dreyfuss and Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito eds., 2014) (Spanish edition published 2016)

Engineered in India: Patent Law 2.0, 369 NEW ENG. J. MED. 497 (2013) (invited "Perspective" analysis)

Going It Alone: The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement as a Sole Executive Agreement, ASIL Insights, Aug. 24, 2011 (with Oona A. Hathaway)

The Story of the TAC Case: The Potential and Limits of Socio-Economic Rights Litigation in South Africa, in HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY STORIES (Foundation Press 2009) (with Jonathan Berger)

Commentary: Innovation Policy for a New Era, 37 J. OF LAW, MEDICINE & ETHICS 264 (June 2009)

Is Bayh-Dole Good for Developing Countries? Lessons from the US Experience, 6 PLOS BIOLOGY e262 (Oct. 1, 2008) (with Anthony D. So, Bhaven N. Sampat, Arti K. Rai, Robert Cook-Deegan, Jerome H. Reichman, and Robert Weissman)

The Access to Knowledge Mobilization and the New Politics of Intellectual Property, 117 YALE L.J. POCKET PART 262 (2008)

Linking Ideas to Outcomes: A Response, 117 YALE L.J. POCKET PART 289 (2008)