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As the year comes to a close, we reflect on the past year as UAEM – the challenges and setbacks we faced as a global community, the progress we collectively fought for, and, most importantly, the community we experienced it all alongside.
Throughout 2025, we confronted attacks to scientific progress, the dismantling of global health infrastructure, growing threats to healthcare access worldwide, and the continued rise of corporate power within our governments. Yet, alongside you and our partners around the world, we are fighting back and standing up for equity and justice, and the movement for access to medicines continues to grow.
Thank you for supporting UAEM this year. Whether you are a student, researcher, alum, or supporter, we are deeply grateful that you are a part of the UAEM community.
We look forward to continuing fighting for equity and justice in 2026.
The UAEM Communications Team wishes you a wonderful holiday season and invites you to explore UAEM’s 2025 highlights below.
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From November 17-21, 2025, UAEMers around the world gathered for Access to Medicines Week to raise awareness about inequalities in global access to safe and effective therapeutics, vaccines, and diagnostics. This year’s campaign, Save Our Science, highlighted the role the university community plays in safeguarding scientific innovation and fighting against attacks to scientific progress. With research funding under threat and inequities in access growing, UAEM chapters across North America and Europe came together to stand up against the global attacks on science.
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(Above) UAEM chapters at universities across the US gather to learn and reflect on the Access to Medicines movement, touching on university responsibility and community efforts.
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Launch of UAEM Canadian Access Coalition
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This year, we launched a UAEM Canadian access coalition that brings together UAEMers across our Canadian chapters to develop and implement an access strategy that is tailored to the Canadian context. A key piece of this work is centered around global access licensing, and advocating for adoption at Canadian universities. Additionally, we are focused on the role of the Canadian government in supporting access to biomedical innovation. In response to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research undertaking a study on how to grow private sector investment in research and development (R&D) in Canada, UAEM’s Canadian access team submitted a brief to push for an R&D framework that strengthens the Canadian government’s commitment to fund biomedical R&D that addresses public health needs, and ensures access is a priority of the commercialization of innovation.
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UAEMers Advocate On Capitol Hill
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In September, UAEM Coordinating Committee members gathered in Washington, D.C. to discuss UAEM’s access and innovation priorities with staff of five congressional representatives. They spoke about the importance of strengthening the ability of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to deliver lifesaving medicines to the public, and protecting and expanding the Medicare Drug Negotiation Program to lower the cost of medicines in the United States. Students at UAEM fight for equitable access to medicines by pushing for policy solutions that limit the monopoly power of Big Pharma and ensure biomedical innovation developed at public institutions are accessible globally. Through conversations with congressional legislative staff, UAEM student leaders highlighted the importance of policies to improve public health and bring medical innovation from the lab bench to patients.
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UAEM student leaders stand in front of the U.S. Capitol Building, after spending the day lobbying for greater drug research and affordability.
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UAEM student leaders and program manager, Cassidy Parshall, pose with Representative Rosa DeLauro.
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Protecting Patients’ Access to Medicines in the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement
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The United States, Mexico, and Canada Agreement (USMCA), the trade agreement that replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), took effect in 2020 and is up next year for its mandatory six-year review. This year, UAEM has been organizing around this critical opportunity to remove harmful intellectual property provisions from the agreement that keep medicines prices high, discourage competition, and ultimately impede availability and access to medicines. UAEM submitted a joint comment with a coalition of nearly 30 public health, faith, and civil society organizations, and testified on behalf of the coalition to the United States Trade Representative, to push for a revised agreement that serves the public interest.
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Will you support the UAEM’s work?
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UAEM’s end of year fundraising campaign, Protect Our Future Scientists, is live and runs through December 31, 2025! Our network is the future of biomedical research as we know it, and at a moment where biomedical research is under attack, UAEM is at the forefront of the fight for biomedical research investments across the United States. Contribute to our fundraising campaign to ensure UAEM can continue working to solve the access to medicines crisis.
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People before profit: Advancing an equitable healthcare future
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We are excited to announce our 2026 North America Conference: People before profit: Advancing an equitable healthcare future.
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The conference is taking place from April 3-5, 2026, and is hosted by the UAEM at University of California, Los Angeles chapter on the UCLA campus. Focused on equity in access to medicines, the conference will feature leaders in biomedical research and the access to medicine movement to highlight the progress, opportunities, and challenges of advancing access to biomedical innovations. We hope to see you there!
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The Dose is brought to you by our Communications Team: Asta Li, Soyeon Park, Anna Ramasamy, Jonathan Valenzuela Mejia, Auriane Journet, Michelle Rakhnayev, and Sydney Steiner. We are currently accepting applications to join our team!
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