Our Proposals

Summary

The Philadelphia Consensus Statement provides a concise statement of UAEM’s specific proposals in three main areas:

• Promoting equal access to research.
• Promoting research and development for neglected diseases.
• Measuring research success according to impact on human welfare.

We invite you to read and sign on.

In addition, more information about each of these policy areas is available below.

Licensing

Because many life-saving drugs are developed in campus laboratories, universities wield substantial leverage when they license their drugs to pharmaceutical companies.

The core of our proposals is simple: 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 could ultimately save millions of lives.

For further information:

• Chaifetz et al., Closing the Access Gap for Health Innovations: Open Licensing, Globalization and Health (Feb. 2007). [pdf]
• Kapczynski et al., Addressing Global Health Inequities: An Open Licensing Approach, Berkeley Technology Law Journal (2005). [pdf]
• Model Terms: The Equitable Access License
  • The Equitable Access License (EAL). [pdf]
  • A Detailed Primer on the EAL. [pdf]
  • A Student’s Guide to the EAL. [pdf]

Legislation

UAEM has also worked on addressing this issue through legislation. Senator Leahy (VT) proposed the Public Research in the Public Interest Act of 2006 (S.4040) to ensure that innovations developed at federally-funded institutions (such as universities) are made available in certain developing countries at the lowest possible cost.

For further information:

• Public Research in the Public Interest (S.4040)
• Legislation Backgrounder

Neglected Diseases

UAEM also promotes research on neglected diseases – those diseases predominantly affecting people who are too poor to constitute a market attractive to private-sector R&D investment. UAEM is working with universities to remove barriers preventing or hindering them from embarking on neglected disease research, lobbying universities to increase the amount of research conducted on neglected diseases, and educating students and faculty about neglected diseases.

For further information:

• Kishore SP, Dhadialla PS. A student-led campaign to help tackle neglected tropical diseases. PLoS Med. 2007 Jul 24;4(7):e241.
• The Weill Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan Kettering Tri-Institutional (Tri-I) Neglected Disease Forum, January 2007
• “Rapid-Impact Interventions”: How a Policy of Integrated Control for Africa’s Neglected Tropical Diseases Could Benefit the Poor, by David H. Molyneux, Peter J. Hotez, Alan Fenwick, PLoS Medicine (November 2005).

Metrics: the Access Metrics Initiative

UAEM is also working to develop and promote novel metrics for university licensing offices. These metrics will evaluate technology transfer practices by their global health impact. The Access Metrics Initiative is a critical and urgent piece of UAEM’s larger campaign for increased access to university-developed medical breakthroughs. The metrics are a concrete, incremental policy change that will fundamentally shift the measure of success inside technology transfer offices while providing those on the outside a tool to ensure accountability. The metrics will thus drive changes that will help address devastating imbalances in global access to medical treatment.

For more information:

• Article from The Chronicle of Higher Education