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Essential Medicines Licensing Policy at Harvard

Essential Medicines Licensing Policy at Harvard

898 signatures 102 to reach 1,000
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Started by Anonymous 17 years ago
Millions of people in the developing world lack access to life-saving "essential" medicines due to unnecessarily prohibitive costs. As a major research institution, Harvard can negotiate licenses that require pharmaceutical companies to permit generic production of these life-saving medical technologies in order to make them more accessible. Yet there is currently no institutionalized policy that promotes this. The "Say Yes To Drugs" campaign aims to raise awareness about Harvard's opportunity to create a global access policy, motivate a policy change, and spur other universities to do the same. The value of Harvard's research should be primarily measured not by its profits but by the number of people whose lives it saves. Indeed, Harvard makes little profit from pharmaceutical sales in developing countries. We call for a policy that: * Recognizes access to medicines and health-related technologies for all as the primary purpose of development of health-related technology. * Implements a system of technology development that protects access to the final end product needed by patients (e.g., formulated pills or vaccines). * Is systematic in its approach, sufficiently transparent to verify its effectiveness, and based on explicit metrics that measure the success of technology transfer by its impact on access and continued innovation. * Supports generic provision by removing legal barriers to generic production of Harvard technologies in resource-limited countries. * Uses proactive licensing provisions to ensure that barriers such as follow-on patents and data exclusivity cannot be used to block generic production.

Updates

Reached 500 supporters

September 23, 2009

Reached 100 supporters

September 15, 2009

September 14, 2009

The climb to one hundred signatures has been slow and exhausting. We have to reach this next milestone quickly if we want the university to take our demands seriously.

6 Comments

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Jessica Wilkinson
16 years ago Featured

Ridiculous that medicine is kept away from the people who need it most just for greed. Do better Harvard.

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David Sinclair
16 years ago Featured

Harvard sets the standard for everyone else. If they lead on this others will follow.

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Robert Porter
16 years ago Featured

Cost should never be a barrier to saving a life. Let the generic drugs be produced already.

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Mark Iyer
16 years ago Featured

People are literally dying while these companies sit on patents they barely even use. This is just common sense.

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Sarah Edwards
16 years ago Featured

Harvard has so much power to change things. Stop prioritizing profits over actual human lives. Just let generic versions be made.

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Emily McBride
16 years ago Featured

So much wasted potential. The research should be helping the world not just sitting in a vault. FIX THIS.

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