Monthly Manifesto: Universities Allied For Essential Medicines

By Staff

Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) is an international student-led campaign that seeks to increase access to medicines that are developed in university laboratories and to increase research on neglected tropical diseases. Our efforts focus on working with the Technology Transfer Officer at UF and building student, faculty and community support for our campaign.

Universities play a critical role in increasing access to essential medicines. As major contributors to drug research and development, universities have the power to influence the way these technologies are disseminated around the world. Universities own patenting rights for various life-saving drugs. Once these university-produced drugs are licensed to a major pharmaceutical company, they have a 20-year right to exclusively produce that drug, giving them a monopoly that increases prices. UAEM wants universities to adopt language in their licensing practices that would reserve the right for generic and nonprofit organizations to produce the drug regardless of the licensee. As a result, generic competition would drop to an affordable price in developing countries, making the drug more accessible to the people who need it.

During our existence at UF, our organization has passed a resolution in Student Government supporting humanitarian licensing; hosted major speakers, such as Stephen Lewis (former United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa); and held numerous film screenings, awareness events, rallies and drives to push for UF action on increasing access to medicines. Currently, we are campaigning for UF to sign onto a new access-focused initiative sponsored by the Association of University Technology Managers, working with UF’s Technology Transfer Officer to adopt the Global Access Licensing Framework and registering UF researchers with Scientists Without Borders. We are also recruiting new members to join us in our efforts to make humanitarian licensing a reality at UF.

If you are interested in getting involved, you can start by attending a weekly meeting on Thursday at 7 p.m. in Rolfs Hall room 209, signing up for our listserv by emailing Laura (lhelmk@ufl.edu), signing on to support access to life saving medicines at www.essentialmedicine.org/cs, making a donation to support national UAEM at