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Uaem published 2022 UAEM NORTH AMERICA BACK TO THE FUTURE FUNDRAISING in UAEM NORTH AMERICA 2022-11-26 13:42:37 -0800
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Petition for the Affordable Access Plan
Your submission will help us show that there is support for this letter which asks the University of California Board of Regents to improve access to their medicines in low-and-middle income countries by adopting the Affordable Access Plan. Whether you are faculty, alumni, student, staff, or a member of the surrounding community, your voice is vital.
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Dear University of California Board of Regents,
We are Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), a global student-driven organization aimed at increasing access to medicines through collaboration with universities around the world. Our members include students and alumni of the University of California system who are deeply concerned by the ongoing and unnecessary barriers to accessing life-saving therapies discovered and developed on campus and the University of California’s limited action to enable equitable access through better licensing practices.
The UC system is uniquely positioned to be the guiding force for ensuring patient populations can access the essential medicines developed on UC campuses. The University of California (UC) is the leading entity in university innovation, granted the most patents of all university systems in the world as of 2021. Across the UC system, mission statements reflect values such as “promoting translational discoveries into public benefit” (UCSF), applying “knowledge for the betterment of our global society” (UCLA), and “seeking the well-being and security of all, as responsible stewards…with appropriate controls, accountability and transparency” (UC Berkeley). UAEM has a robust history of collaborating with the UC to promote these ideals. In 2012, UAEM students pushed the UC system to adopt global access licensing principles. UAEM has been elated to see that UC Berkeley took steps to move the principles into action with the socially responsible licensing program. However, there is still improvement needed to address access beyond a few neglected diseases.
Currently, there are substantial barriers to affordable and equitable access to the UC-developed treatments in low- and middle-income countries. For example, UC Berkeley’s ipilimumab, a groundbreaking treatment for melanoma, is largely unaffordable in non-European markets. Access is especially difficult in Southeast Asia and the Middle East where there are no price reductions. Additionally, UCLA’s life-saving prostate cancer medication Xtandi, was more than 38 times the per capita income in India.
In the wake of UC's patent case in India for Xtandi, UAEM students again went to the Board of Regents to urge them to not keep the global access licensing principles as just mere words, but action. This movement led UCLA’s Technology Development Group (TDG) to adopt the Affordable Access Plan in July 2020. The AAP (Appendix A) is a set of intellectual property provisions aimed at increasing access to all therapies developed at universities for people living in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs). The AAP’s use in UCLA’s biotechnology and pharmaceutical licenses has been met without pushback from industry licensees. This implementation has the promise to allow the university to hold licensees accountable, and has yielded promising conversations with UC Berkeley’s Chancellor and other administrators for potential implementation as a complement to the existing Socially Responsible Licensing Program.
The University of California should adopt the AAP across all its institutions as universal licensing language to prevent future therapies from being inaccessible and unaffordable in LMICs. By doing so, the UC will serve as a leader amongst universities, putting patients before profits and ultimately saving lives.
UAEM North America
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Starting Your Chapter
Starting a UAEM Chapter can be hard work! Start here to learn the basics of what you should do to build it up!
The first place to start: Check out these slides on UAEM 101!
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Chapter Tools
Starting Your Chapter
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Posted by Uaem · October 28, 2022 8:01 PM
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Uaem published UAEM Co-hosted a Session on Global Access to Medicines for the 2022 Virtual Health Advocacy Summit in STUDENT VOICES 2022-10-04 11:06:20 -0700
UAEM Co-hosted a Session on Global Access to Medicines for the 2022 Virtual Health Advocacy Summit
UAEM North America partnered with Generation Patient and co-hosted a session on Global Access to Medicines on October 1st for the 2022 Virtual Health Advocacy Summit featuring UAEM's own Anmol Gupta and Navya Desari.
Listen to the recording of the session here: Global Access to Medicines - YouTube
The session was part of the 2022 Virtual Health Advocacy Summit-- a free, international event for young adults with chronic conditions, hosted by Generation Patient. Generation Patient is a nonprofit created by and for young adult patients.
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Rahwa Tareke
RAHWA TAREKE
Finance and Operations Manager, North America
Rahwa provides financial, accounting and operations management to UAEM North America. Before joining UAEM, she worked as a program and research coordinator with different nonprofit organizations focusing on economic sustainability and human rights. Rahwa holds a Master’s degree from the International Institute of Social Studies, where she studied development studies with specialization in economics of development.
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Open Letter to White House Chief of Staff - Ron Klain
On May 2, 2022, UAEM sent a letter to Ron Klain, White House Chief of Staff. The letter requests assurance that White House officials with financial conflicts of interest recuse themselves from the review of the petition asking the government to march-in and exercise other rights to the life-saving prostate cancer drug Xtandi (enzalutamide) originally developed with funds from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Defense (DOD) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Read the full text here.
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Open Letter to the FDA Commissioner - The Hon. Robert M. Califf
NAVYA DASARI
NEELU PALETI
UAEM has sent an open letter to The Hon. Robert M. Califf, the newly appointed U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner calling his leadership to attend with real urgency to the significant but so far underserved issue of clinical trial registration and results reporting.
Read the full letter here.
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How UCLA students Persisted and Won
Due to sustained UAEM student organizing the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has at last published the "Affordable Access Plan (AAP)"! The AAP provision is intended to better address the needs of underserved populations so that going forward medicines developed on the UCLA campus are not priced out of reach in low- and middle-income countries.
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Uaem published UAEMers Featured in the 1st Vine from Economic Security Project in NEWS 2022-04-05 10:46:15 -0700
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Uaem published The ‘Compromise’ Version of the TRIPS Waiver and the Illusion of Victory in NEWS 2022-04-05 09:50:05 -0700
The ‘Compromise’ Version of the TRIPS Waiver and the Illusion of Victory
Latin American student members of UAEM call on their governments to reject the TRIPS waiver compromise.
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Uaem published UAEM calls for recusal of NIH's Special Advisor for Technology Transfer in Xtandi case in NEWS 2022-02-23 12:35:17 -0800
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UAEM Remembers Dr. Paul Farmer
Dear UAEM Family & Friends,
It is with a very heavy heart that we write to share the devastating loss to our community with the sudden passing of our Advisory Board Member, Dr Paul Farmer, a world-renowned infectious disease doctor, founder of Partners in Health, humanitarian, author, father and friend.
Paul’s legacy is so far-reaching that it would be impossible to summarize his extraordinary impact here and so instead we choose to focus on how deeply he inspired and shaped the work of so many of us at UAEM; many of us learned about his early legacy in Haiti and around the world and, as students, had our own hopes and dreams of perhaps one day following in his footsteps.
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Uaem published Op-ed: US agencies must ensure equitable access to drugs developed with public funds in STUDENT VOICES 2022-02-17 14:19:55 -0800
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Uaem published UAEM Students in Common Dreams on the Fight to Make Xtandi Affordable! in NEWS 2022-01-26 08:51:13 -0800
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Uaem published UAEM petitions HHS for hearing on march-in rights on Xtandi in NEWS 2022-01-14 08:12:57 -0800
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Uaem published World AIDS Day video narrated by Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex and Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director makes urgent call to end HIVand COVID-19 pandemics in NEWS 2021-12-01 07:10:14 -0800
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End Vaccine Apartheid, Vaccinate the World Rally
On October 28th UAEM students and staff supported the organizing for a protest led by allies “People’s Action” in Washington DC demanding world leaders at G20 1) lift vaccine patents and share the technology to allow ALL countries to develop their own vaccines and 2) equitably redistribute surplus vaccines in high income nations. The rally was covered on the front page of Democracy Now. The image that was selected was of our Free the Vaccine banner with “Sharing is Caring” held up by students in Care Bear costumes. Full coverage of the protest can be viewed here.
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WHITE COAT REBELS DOCUMENTARY COMING SOON FROM PARTICIPANT MEDIA
UAEM members Neda Ashtari, along with former UAEM board member Gloria Tavera are the focus of the new documentary, "White Coat Rebels by a documentary team from Participant Media". The documentary examines the pharmaceutical industry from the perspective of advocacy and those who are fighting against its power and influence. In case you missed it at the Silver Spring film festival, it is now closed, but we will announce broader distribution in the coming months. Stay Tuned!
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