PLoS Perspective Calls on University of California to Ensure Affordable Access to Drugs Discovered on Campuses

March 30, 2010                                                                                  Contact: Ethan Guillen

                                                                                                               Phone: 775-287-2553

                                                                     Email: ethan dot guillen at essentialmedicine dot org

For Immediate Release

PLoS Perspective Calls on University of California to Ensure Affordable Access to Drugs Discovered on Campuses

OAKLAND – Today, members of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines published a perspective on the widespread use of exclusive licensing by universities on medicines compounds in the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. The silent epidemic of universities exclusively licensing compounds derived in their laboratories to industrial partners often restricts access of the end-product globally, inconsistent with the university’s mission to serve the public interest. A set of principles to facilitate global access and non-exclusive licensing models are proposed by UAEM in the Global Access Licensing Framework (GAL Framework).

The adoption of global access licensing terms may be nowhere more relevant than at the University of California, a consortium of ten campuses. The public institution reaps nearly 10% of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) external research budget, making it the largest recipient of NIH funding in the U.S. Moreover, reports now show that, of all institutions of higher education, the UC system averaged the highest level of licensing income annually from its research discoveries in biotechnology from 1997 to 2003. From 2002 to 2006, UC was second worldwide only to the Japan Science and Technology Agency in number of biotechnology patents.  Key UC discoveries include the hepatitis B vaccine; Fuzeon, a salvage HIV therapy; and a low-cost synthetic method of producing artemisinin for malaria.

“This article will hopefully draw attention to a significant issue that students have been bringing to the attention of our campuses’ administrators for some time now,” said Taylor Gilliland, a UC-UAEM leader and student at UC San Diego. “The UC has pledged to take action, yet has not followed through. It is time for the University of California to take concrete and transparent steps to ensure that their licensing practices do not continue to hinder global access to health innovations.”

The work launches UAEM’s Global Access to Medicines Month, where students worldwide are publicly calling on their universities to uphold the principles of equitable access to global public health. Events in Canada, Germany, the US, and UK throughout the month will draw attention to the need for low-cost access to university-discovered medicines in developing countries and the need for universities to use their clout to fight in the public interest, not on behalf of pharmaceutical company profits.  Universities have recently lobbied on behalf of excessive monopolies for generic biologics and against recommendations that if implemented would help to limit abusive gene patenting.

The full article is available here: http://www.plosntds.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pntd.0000570

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About UAEM

Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) is a coalition of students at over 60 top research institutions across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany.  UAEM’s mission is to ensure that people in developing countries have access to medicines discovered in universities and that university medical research addresses the needs of the majority of the world’s population.  As an organization which values innovation, we work to empower students to find new ways to improve access to health throughout the world. www.essentialmedicine.org