MIT Technology Review: UAEM Alum Calls for Global Access to Health Innovations

"The MIT community...can again lead the way in a matter of life and death for so many," writes Sanjat Kanjilal, MD, in a letter to this high-profile MIT publication...

Global Access for IP

As a graduate of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program, I am proud of MIT's contribution to medical innovation. Yet the luster of our achievements dulls with the realization that only a small percentage of the world's population actually benefits from them. While factors such as lack of health-care infrastructure and political instability are beyond our control, the high price of medical technologies is arguably the one major global health problem that an academic institution can directly influence. Universities play a vital role in generating the raw ideas behind diagnostics and therapeutics and transferring them to the private sector. But steep prices set by industry put university-derived intellectual property (IP) beyond the reach of much of the world.

MIT can address this by introducing "global access" clauses to all IP agreements. Partner companies would be required to charge different prices in different regions and allow generic production of certain products, with appropriate safeguards to prevent leakage back into high-income countries. This would open up new (albeit low-margin) markets that provide for the underserved—and would align with MIT's mission of advancing scientific knowledge to serve the world.

I am a physician-scientist on the front lines of poverty and a member of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, a nonprofit that mobilizes universities to alleviate global health inequalities. I write this open letter to MIT alumni as a jumping-off point for further discussion and action. The MIT community has risen to great challenges in the past and I am confident we can again lead the way in a matter of life and death for so many.

Sanjat Kanjilal, MD '10 (Harvard)
New York