The Access to Medicines Problem
The World Health Organization estimates that 10 million people die every year, mostly in developing countries, because they are unable to access existing drugs and vaccines. Several factors impede access to the medicines that exist, chief among them being the cost. Generic competition is the most effective means to lower the price of medicines. For example, the price of antiretroviral therapy for HIV dropped from more than $10,000 per patient per year in 2001 to under $100 today. Unfortunately, generic drug production for people in poor countries has been harmed by trade agreements and laws that impede generic companies from producing affordable drugs. Millions die because competition cannot take place, and pharmaceutical companies wind up having exclusive rights to vital medicines.
The Role of Universities
As many of these life-saving drugs are developed in campus laboratories, many and with public funds, universities wield substantial leverage when they license their drugs to pharmaceutical companies.
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) is a student organization that works to leverage academic research for global health. We work to ensure that university medical research addresses the needs of people around the world by advocating for academic research on the neglected diseases of the bottom billion, the diseases that keep poor people poor and that are often ignored by the private sector. UAEM proposes a simple solution: when a university licenses a promising new drug candidate to a pharmaceutical company, it should require that the company allow the drug to be made available in poor countries at the lowest possible cost. This would have virtually no financial impact on the company or university, but would ultimately result in increased access to essential medicines and many saved lives.
It’s time Maastricht University develops its humanitarian agenda, representing equal access to medicines, and we need your help to be successful!
UAEM Academy
At our biweekly meetings we always include a little UAEM Academy session, an opportunity to learn from each other. This can be a presentation of a member who’s passionate about a specific topic, a little workshop or a discussion on a recent article.
Projects
In various projects we work together in small teams to collaborate with diverse partner organizations and other groups to explore new ways to spread the word and create a new vision for pharmaceutical production.
UAEM Board
The UAEM Maastricht board consists of the president, the treasurer, the policy coordinator, the head of public relations and the head of communications. Together we work out strategies and projects to broaden our organizations horizon and get involved in discussions around access to medicines.
Huda is a 3rd year European Public Health student, with a special interest in Migration and Refugee Health. She is very passionate about access to medicines, particularly in the developing world.
Premium Project
Farma ter Verantwoording and UAEM Maastricht are collaborating on a PREMIUM project.
The PREMIUM students will investigate the drug Alemtuzumab, which was withdrawn as leukaemia treatment and then relaunched as a treatment for multiple sclerosis with a 20fold increase in price. The results will be used to campaign to lower the price of medicines.
Find out more: https://edlab.nl/…/about-premium/premium-projects-2019-2020/
From left to right: Jennifer Sellin (Law Professor Maastricht University), Wilbert Bannenberg (Farma ter Verantwoording) and Martina Guggeis (UAEM Maastricht)
A2M Week 2016
After weeks of preparation the 14th of November finally arrived: the start of Access to Medicine week 2016. A week full of events build around the central theme: antimicrobial resistance and the failing R&D system. Our university faculties and Facebook pages started turning yellow and the slogan: ‘let’s tackle the superbugs together’ could not be missed. Flyers were spread, posters were hung and the word started going round. Video messages with questions like: “do you ever take an antibiotic for a cold or flu?” and “what if you are already resistance and can’t be cured anymore?” popped up on everybody’s news feed, making more and more people interested and eager to join the events we had organised for the week.
Only Monday evening we kicked off with a pub quiz at Peter’s Irish Pub. It was a full house. Although not all people attending were affiliated with UAEM, more than 100 people were present. And oh dear, our knowledge was put to test. Questions like “who are the female co-founders of Hogwarts” were alternated at high speeds with questions about antibiotic resistance. Whilst enjoying a beer, brains were cracked and knowledge was gained. After the winning team collected its prize, everybody left full new information about antimicrobial resistance and what he or she can do about this problem.
After this night, questions that kept floating around in our brains needed answers. UAEM Maastricht partnered up with De Brandweer to shed light on some of the important mechanisms of AMR during the screening of the award winning documentary “Resistance.” One and a half hour of breathless watching, and intensely sipping on drinks and nibbling on snacks, later everyone was moved by the microscopic world of bacteria, the harrowing personal stories of people related to AMR and the seemingly dark future that is ahead of us. However the motivational flow to fight this future and tackle the problem started when Shelly Parry, a UAEM member who wrote her thesis about an AMR related topic, guided a discussion on the topic. How did we get to this point? What can we do to turn the tide? A discussion about new ways of creating antibiotics started and people requested more information which we sent them afterwards via mail. All of the audience left enlightened and motivated.
On Thursday night, we left the stage to the chair of the Dutch Malaria Foundation, author of a Ted-X talk and award winner of an Ig Nobel Prize and Eijman medal, Bart Knols, for a lecture on malaria and the resistance to its treatment. The world of malaria resistance opened up for the audience, which was shocked by the number of fake drugs being shipped in Africa every day. Afterwards more discussion under the enjoyment of some beers and pepernoten went on until the late hours.
On Friday we closed off the week with a blast: Music for Medicines mesh up at the Mandril. A party at the Mandril Cultural and Political Centre featuring artists with colourful vibes in a magical space dancing on funky tunes.
Eager and motivated to fight for our goals and fight AMR we look back on a very successful Access to Medicine Week. Throughout the week a lot of people got interested in UAEM, and we were humbled by the amount of people who would like to join our organisation. We will keep in close contact with them and invite everyone to our member recruitment in January 2017. Following the pictures: they say more than a 1000 words!
Many thanks to everyone who helped organising this year’s Access to Medicine week and to everyone who attended our events! Let’s tackle these superbugs together and see you next year!
Love,
UAEM Maastricht
The future of expensive medicines
Debate night organized by UAEM Maastricht, 11th of April 2016
“About a third of the world’s population lacks access to essential medicines, and one of the main reasons for this is the current intellectual property regime.” Jennifer Sellin, lecturer and researcher at the department of International Law at Maastricht University unscrupulously addressed the elephant in the room, the subject of heated debates and conversations. The high prices od patented medicine and the issue of limited access to essential medicines was the subject of a debate bringing together the divergent perspectives and opinions of Cornelis Boersma, Director of Corporate Affairs at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Dr. Henri Theunissen, head of the Technology Transfer Office of Maastricht University, Eduardo Urias, PhD fellow at UNU-MERIT and Richard Slobbe, pharmacist and founder of the Global Initiative for Medication Safety.
Cornelis Boersma stressed the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): “We value shareholders and stakeholders [equally]”. He pointed out that GSK are active in developing vaccines for diseases which typically affect subtropical countries, and that HIV products have been made available through licensing. However, Richard Slobbe reminded the audience of the commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry and expressed concern with the business model of the pharmaceutical industry and the structure of the market pharmaceutical companies compete in. He claimed that industry leaders attain considerable profit margins (GSK made £8.32bn in 2015, with a profit margin of 35%). As an echo to this statement, Henri Theunissen, avid supporter of UAEM, added that the issue at stake does not solely reside in the patents regime but is also a matter of drug pricing. Solutions can therefore only be found through an open dialogue between governments and the pharmaceutical industry.
The debate thus followed a familiar pattern whereby the defenders of the status quo identify the interaction of major actors (companies, governments, trade organizations) as providing the potential for a solution, and critics emphasize the structural and institutional problems (markets, patent laws) as targets for change. What is certain is that the current situation is getting more attention, especially considering the fact it has become a matter of concern even in high incomes countries. Indeed, Eduardo Urias mentioned the example of the UK National Health Service’s withdrawal of 25 cancer drugs. Furthermore, with the recent signing of the Transatlantic Trade and Partnership Agreement, extending the monopoly of pharmaceutical companies in agreeing member states, it seems clear that lobbyists often set tone on the agenda of state governments, as pointed out by Sellin.
The panelists were able to agree on one statement however: providing healthcare to all will require global (transnational and supranational) and societal action. Whether this will be attained with radical approaches like the nationalization of pharmaceutical industry or by resorting to Social License to Operate will certainly be the subject of future discussions.
UM signs Socially Responsibe Research and Licensing (SRRL) policy
Maastricht University is the first University of the Netherlands in signing the Socially Responsible Research and Licensing (SRRL) policy.
On the 8th of December 2015, Prof. Dr. Martin Paul, president of Maastricht University, signed the agreement in the course of a big event organized by UAEM Maastricht and the Ambassador lecture series. About 200 people joined us for this event. One of our highlights was the speech by Ellen ‘t Hoen, an expert in medicine policy and intellectual property rights, and a big UAEM supporter.
As Jeffrie, the co-founder of UAEM Maastricht, mentioned in his speech, “this was not an act of generosity, but a compelling necessity”, because the decision of our university is based on moral justice. By signing this policy Maastricht University agrees on making research more transparent, improving research on neglected diseases, and trying to integrate the topics into the curriculum of the university.
This was a really important day for us as UAEM Maastricht, but also a milestone for UAEM Netherlands, and UAEM Europe. Still, our mission is not done with the signing of this contract. This is just the beginning of the implementation of the policy in Maastricht and a long way of fighting for more access to medicine.
We hope that more universities in Europe will follow!
