[Ip-health] PRESS RELEASE: Students Call for Universities to Stop Abetting Access-to-Medicines Crisis in Poor Countries

[Caroline Gallant]

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Below please find a press release announcing the Philadelphia Consensus
Statement On University Policies for Health-Related Innovations.

You are also invited to read the Statement's full text and support it
by signing on via the website:
  http://consensus.essentialmedicine.org/

Regards,
Caroline Gallant
Universities Allied for Essential Medicine
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
  November 14, 2006

Contact: Caroline Gallant
(514) 833-7703
caroline.gallant@mail.mcgill.ca


Students Across North America Call for Universities to Stop Abetting
Access-to-Medicines Crisis in Poor Countries

International Leaders Voice Support for Student Activists


PHILADELPHIA, Pa. =96 A student group seeking to make life-saving
medicines more accessible in developing countries has caught the
attention of an array of international leaders.=A0 A South African
Supreme Court Justice, four Nobel laureates, and humanitarians
including the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and the
co-founders of Partners in Health have voiced their support for the
recently-released Philadelphia Consensus Statement of Universities
Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM).

The Consensus Statement consists of three major policy proposals to
reform the way universities develop and license biomedical research
discoveries.=A0 According to the Statement, universities should: (1)
promote equal access to the fruits of university research, such as
drugs and vaccines; (2) engage in and promote research and development
for neglected diseases; and (3) measure research success according to
impact on human welfare.=A0 The text of the Philadelphia Consensus
Statement and a full list of signatories are available at
http://consensus.essentialmedicine.org/  .

"The Philadelphia Consensus Statement represents a watershed moment for
universities to collectively do the right thing when it comes to making
their innovations available to those who need it most," said Justice
Edwin Cameron, who serves on the South African Supreme Court of
Appeal.=A0 Justice Cameron was the first senior South African official to
state publicly that he was living with HIV/AIDS.

"For too long, life-saving medical tools that are the fruits of
university-led discovery have been denied to poor people in poor
countries.=A0 If our universities really are to be institutions for the
public good, this must change," said Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of the
humanitarian organization Partners in Health and Presley Professor of
Medical Anthropology at Harvard University.

The issue of university research and the access crisis has also
attracted the attention of policymakers at the national level.=A0 Senator
Patrick Leahy (D-VT), ranking member on the Judiciary Committee,
recently introduced legislation requiring all federally-funded research
institutions to ensure that the drugs they develop are supplied to poor
countries at the lowest possible cost.=A0 The Public Research in the
Public Interest Act of 2006 (S. 4040) reflects a growing consensus that
universities have failed to act on an issue uniquely within their
power.

"Universities are, before anything else, institutions dedicated to the
creation and dissemination of knowledge in the public interest.=A0 The
Public Research in the Public Interest Act of 2006 is designed in the
spirit of that commitment," said Senator Leahy.=A0 "I have introduced
this legislation because the leaders of universities have not yet been
able to come together around a different approach.=A0 Regardless of how
it is achieved, I believe that increasing the availability of the
medical innovations that come from publicly-funded research centers is
a sound solution to a pressing global health concern."

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About Universities Allied for Essential Medicines

UAEM is a coalition of over 35 student chapters across North America
dedicated to using university action to ameliorate the
access-to-medicines crisis in developing countries.=A0 Universities
Allied for Essential=A0 Medicines has a two-fold mission: (1) to
determine how universities can help ensure that biomedical end
products, such as drugs, are made more accessible in poor countries and
(2) to increase the amount of research conducted on neglected diseases,
or those diseases predominantly affecting people who are too poor to
constitute a market attractive to private-sector R&D investment.=A0 In
both cases, universities are well-placed to make a difference.=A0
University scientists are major contributors in the drug development
pipeline.=A0 At the same time, universities have an avowed commitment to
advancing the public good.=A0 As members of these universities, our
fundamental goal is to hold them to this commitment.=A0 Please see
http://www.essentialmedicine.org/ for more information.


About the Philadelphia Consensus Statement

The Philadelphia Consensus Statement was adopted by Universities Allied
for Essential Medicines following the 2006 annual conference held in
early October at the University of Pennsylvania.=A0 Initial signatories
include four Nobel laureates, nine of the most distinguished professors
in the field of intellectual property law, and international luminaries
including Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa;
Zackie Achmat, founder of South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign; and
Jim Yong Kim, former Director of the Department of HIV/AIDS at the
World Health Organization. =A0

The text of the statement and a full list of initial signatories is
available online at: http://consensus.essentialmedicine.org/


About the Public Research in the Public Interest Act of 2006 ( S.4040)

This bill would allow generic manufacturers to supply medicines
originating from federally-funded university innovations in developing
countries at affordable prices.=A0 Because these licensing terms
encourage the introduction of reduced-price drugs only in markets too
poor to otherwise afford them, its terms do not threaten intellectual
property, corporate investments, or profits in wealthy nations.=A0
Moreover, under the proposal, both pharmaceutical companies and
universities would receive royalties from the sale of generics in
developing-world markets.

The text of S.4040 is available online at:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?
dbname=3D109_cong_bills&docid=3Df:s4040is.txt.pdf
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