Dates: 23 May 2018
Geneva
More than 110 participants attended the event co-organised by the Department of Health of South Africa, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Unitaid and the Medicines Patent Pool on the sidelines of the 71st World Health Assembly on Thursday 24 May 2018 in Geneva.
Representatives from governments, international organisations, industry and civil society all gathered to discuss access to affordable treatment in the context of Universal Health Coverage.
Marie-Paule Kieny, Chair of the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) Governance Board, detailed the MPP’s new five-year strategy for accelerating access to life-saving medicines in developing countries and took this opportunity to introduce the incoming Executive Director of the foundation, Charles Gore.
Esteban Burrone, MPP Head of Policy, then summarised the key findings of a feasibility study conducted to explore a potential expansion of the MPP’s activities into patented essential medicines.
Following this introduction, Lelio Marmora, Unitaid Executive Director; Soumya Swaminathan, WHO Deputy Director General for Programmes; Nora Kronig Romero, Switzerland Federal Office of Public Health Vice-Director General, Ambassador for Global Health; Damiano de Felice, Access to Medicines Foundation Director of Strategy; Rajiv Kumar Chander, Ambassador & Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations Office at Geneva; and Yogan Pillay, Deputy Director-General at South Africa’s National Department of Health, exchanged viewpoints and raised interesting questions during a lively panel discussion.
Press and Media
The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) is a United Nations-backed public health organisation working to increase access to and facilitate the development of life-saving medicines for low- and middle-income countries. Through its innovative business model, MPP partners with civil society, governments, international organisations, industry, patient groups, and other stakeholders to prioritise and license needed medicines and pool intellectual property to encourage generic manufacture and the development of new formulations.
To date, MPP has signed agreements with 22 patent holders for 13 HIV antiretrovirals, one HIV technology platform, three hepatitis C direct-acting antivirals, a tuberculosis treatment, a cancer treatment, four long-acting technologies, a post-partum haemorrhage medicine, three oral antiviral treatments for COVID-19 and 16 COVID-19 technologies.
MPP was founded by Unitaid, which continues to be MPP’s main funder. MPP’s work on access to essential medicines is also funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Government of Canada, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Government of Flanders. MPP’s activities in COVID-19 are undertaken with the financial support of the Japanese Government, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, the German Agency for International Cooperation, and SDC.