[Ip-health] Support Access to University-Developed Medicines -- CALL FOR SIGNATORIES

[Caroline Gallant]

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Subject: Support Access to University-Developed Medicines -- CALL FOR
SIGNATORIES

Organizations and individuals are invited to endorse the Philadelphia
Consensus Statement recently adopted by the international student group
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM;
www.essentialmedicine.org).=A0 The full text of the statement is
attached.

We hope to gather as many signatures as possible in advance of a
broader public release slated for next Monday, October 23rd, 2006.

Individuals and organizations who have signed on to the Philadelphia
Consensus Statement thus far are listed below.

The Consensus Statement proposes three major changes to university
policies on health-related innovations:

I) Universities should promote equal access to research
II) Universities should promote research and development for neglected
diseases
III) Universities should measure research success according to impact
on human welfare

EQUAL ACCESS
Universities are key developers of drugs, vaccines or diagnostics. They
can leverage their intellectual property on these innovations to ensure
low-cost access in the developing world.

Mechanisms proposed to ensure access include: granting rights to
generic companies to manufacture and export university innovations to
developing countries, price reductions, non-patenting requirements in
low- and middle-income countries, and participation in patent pools.

RESEARCH FOR NEGLECTED DISEASES
Neglected diseases are those for which treatment options are inadequate
or do not exist and for which drug-market potential is insufficient to
attract a private-sector response.

Universities can adopt policies that remove barriers to neglected
diseases R&D. =A0Proposed policy changes include: engaging with
nontraditional partners, such as public-private partnerships or
developing country institutions, creating new opportunities for drug
development, and carving out neglected disease research exemptions in
any university patents or licenses.

MEASURING RESEARCH SUCCESS BY IMPACT ON HUMAN WELFARE
University technology transfer operations are usually evaluated using
simple, quantifiable criteria such as patents applied for and received,
licenses granted, and licensing revenue generated. Therefore, the
positive social impact of university innovations=97particularly in poor
countries=97goes largely unnoticed.

Universities can rectify this situation by collecting and making public
statistics on university intellectual property practices related to
global health access and collaborating to develop new technology
transfer metrics to better gauge access to public health goods and
innovation in neglected-disease research.


For more information on the Philadelphia Consensus Statement or UAEM,
please contact Caroline Gallant: caroline.gallant@mail.mcgill.ca

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LIST OF INITIAL SIGNATORIES TO THE PHILADELPHIA CONSENSUS STATEMENT

Individuals

Zackie Achmat, Founder and Chairman, Treatment Action Campaign

Jerry Avorn, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Solomon Benatar, Professor of Medicine, University of Cape Town;
Foreign Member, Institute of Medicine

Yochai Benkler, Professor of Law, Yale Law School

Edwin Cameron, Justice, South African Supreme Court of Appeal

Art Caplan, Emmanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics, University
of Pennsylvania

Arachu Castro, Director of the Institute of Health and Social Justice,
Partners in Health; and Assistant Professor of Social Medicine, Harvard
Medical School

Nils Daulaire, President and CEO, Global Health Council

Paul Farmer, Presley Professor of Medical Anthropology, Harvard
University

Wim G.J. Hol, Professor, Biochemistry and Biological Structure,
Investigator Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Washington

Peter Hotez, Director, Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative

Jim Yong Kim, Fran=E7ois-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human
Rights, Harvard University

Lawrence Lessig

Jamie Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology

Peter Lurie, Deputy Director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group

J. Andrew McCammon, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Joseph E. Mayer Professor of Theoretical Chemistry, Professor of
Pharmacology, UC San Diego

Peter Menell, Professor of Law and Director, Berkeley Center for Law &
Technology

Michael Merson, Anna M R Lauder Professor of Public Health, Yale
University

Beth Noveck, Director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy
and Associate Professor, New York Law School

Bernard Pecoul, Executive Director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases
Initiative

Thomas Pogge, Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University

Jonathan Quick, Former Director of Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy
at the World Health Organization and President and CEO of Management
Sciences for Health

Arti Rai, Professor of Law, Duke University

F.M. Scherer, Aetna Professor Emeritus of Government, Harvard University

Harold Simon, Professor of Family and Preventive Medicine, Chief of the
Division of International Health and Cross-cultural Medicine, UC San
Diego

Sir John Sulston, Nobel Laureate in Medicine


Organizations

American Medical Student Association

Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

Global Health Council

Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge (I-MAK)

Student Campaign for Child Survival

Student Global AIDS Campaign
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[ PhiladelphiaConsensusStatement.pdf of type application/pdf deleted ]
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