Improving Access to Medicines in Poor Countries: The Role of Universities

According to the World Health Organization, about 10 million people—most of them in low- and middle-income countries—die needlessly every year because they do not have access to existing medicines and vaccines [1]. Countless others suffer from neglected tropical diseases, such as sleeping sickness, lymphatic filariasis, and blinding trachoma, for which there are still too few safe or effective medicines [2]. Drug companies have traditionally been reluctant to develop drugs for neglected diseases because the patients are too poor to pay for them, so there is no financial incentive for drug development. Comprehensive solutions are thus needed to increase both access to existing medicines and research on neglected diseases. These solutions must involve strengthening health-care systems in poor countries, increasing financial flows for the most pressing public health crises, and better matching our research and development efforts to the needs of the poor. The challenges of making such wholesale changes are daunting [3]. Our organization, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) (Box 1), a coalition of students and faculty at about 25 universities across North America, focuses on the role of academic research institutions as a starting point for closing the access and research gaps. To be sure, much of the recent progress in global health research and awareness can be attributed to universities. Yet we must go further. As medical students, we have a unique ability to “turn the spotlight inward” by calling attention to our universities' responsibilities when it comes to essential medicines. Box 1. Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Who We Are UAEM is a coalition of students and faculty at about 25 research universities across North America. Our goal is to improve access to medicines in poor countries through university action. What We Do Our activities take place at both the chapter level and the international level. At the chapter level, we petition for changes in the policies and practices at the universities we attend. For example, at the University of California Berkeley, administrators announced a Socially Responsible Licensing Initiative (http://ipira.berkeley.edu/docs/sociallyresponsible.pdf) that arose in part through discussions with the Berkeley UAEM chapter. At the international level, we convene groups of students—in consultation with faculty members and other experts—to determine how best to improve access to medicines in poor countries through research and policy analysis. For example, a consensus UAEM Policy Statement was released in October 2005 after a meeting at Georgetown University (Washington, D. C., United States of America) that brought together more than 75 students representing 28 universities (see http://www.essentialmedicine.org/Oct2005PolicyStatement.pdf). How You Can Get Involved Join UAEM through our Web site (http://www.essentialmedicine.org). Figure out what steps your university currently takes to ensure access to its innovations in poor countries by talking to faculty members, technology transfer officers, and administrators who set the university research agenda. Learn more about the access and research gaps through organizations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres (http://www.accessmed-msf.org) and build awareness on your own campus.