TEDxTerryTalks - Mike Gretes - 11/22/08

Talk Title: Making Medicines for People, Not for Profit

Description: All lives, no matter where they are lived, have equal value. Yet access to life-saving drugs is most often limited to those who can pay for them. Also, treatments for many tropical diseases are either unavailable or are increasingly ineffective, with toxic side effects to boot. Universities Allied for Essential Medicines is a student organization dedicated to fixing this broken system. We work by changing how universities set their technology licensing priorities and their research agendas. At UBC, weve persuaded administration to publicly adopt a set of Global Access Principles that are a first-in-Canada, courageous start to making medicines available to everyone regardless of their income. But we can do more. With the help of UBC students, we want to reach every faculty member whose research can benefit the worlds poor. We want to expand UAEM to all major research universities in Canada. We must also ensure that UBC stays true to its commitments. Ill talk about strategies for getting this done, give insights into the drug development process and the bizarre world of intellectual property (fun stuff!) and highlight the contributions UAEM has made at UBC encapsulated by the story of a new drug developed right here oral Amphotericin B. This drug will treat the disfiguring and lethal disease leishmaniasis that affects tens of millions of people around the globe, and is free of the toxic side effects of previous formulations of the drug. Oral Amp B will be developed and made available at cost to people in low and middle income countries. UBC students will see how a great idea (universities changing access to drugs through licensing agreements) combined with dedicated student activism creates real change in the world.

Links:
http://ubc-uaem.org/
http://www.uilo.ubc.ca/global.asp
http://terry.ubc.ca/tedxterrytalks

Filmed by Craig Ross at TEDx Terry talks 2008 (November 22nd, 2008). Video edited by David Ng.

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Category:

Education

Tags:

• medicine
• development
• AIDS
• malaria
• global health
• ubc
• pharma
• access to medicines
• neglected diseases

[gadionson1]

nice video! love it.

[LeftEdit]

a tiny poor island like Cuba can serve out more doctors to the worlds poor than the big and mighty US?

How?

its in the economic model, where 40% of GDP is spent on health and education. Free health and education for all and the surplus is sent in solidarity elsewhere.

[LeftEdit]

in Cuba, state health workers have been serving the worlds poor for years. Shame this video doesnt recognise that and work from the already existing model.

there is a problem with the drug companies- they are companies.a minority profit whilst a majority suffer.

the cubans suffer from the embargo which effects what drugs you can get but none the less they are out there serving the worlds poor.

they have 500 doctors in Haiti for the last 10 years and after the quake they have about 1400 there.

[celshader97]

a few years ago I read an article written by bill gates about FDA incentives to get pharmaceuticals to put research into drugs that had little economic benefit if made for the Western market, like malaria drugs. a company could make the malaria drug to get another product of theirs put to market a year earlier to help generate more revenue off their patent. seems like there might be something similar that can be done with this.