WHO WE ARE Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) is a coalition of undergraduate, graduate and professional students at academic

institutions around the world dedicated to addressing the global access to medicines crisis. OUR VISION Universities and publicly funded research institutions will be part of the solution to the access to medicines crisis by promoting medical innovation in the public interest and ensuring that all people regardless of income have access to essential medicines and other health-related technologies. OUR MISSION As a private non-profit organization rooted in a movement of university students, UAEM aims to - promote access to medicines for people in developing countries by changing norms and practices around university patenting and licensing - ensure that university medical research meets the needs of the majority of the worlds population - empower students to respond to the access and innovation crisis

UAEM Winter Leadership Meeting, January 2011

Universities Allied for Essential Medicines

Our labs. Our drugs. Our responsibility.

Universities Allied for Essential Medicines email: info@essentialmedicine.org web: www.essentialmedicine.org mail: 2625 Alcatraz Avenue, #180 Berkeley, CA 94705

www.essentialmedicine.org

GLOBAL ACCESS TO UNIVERSITY-DEVELOPED MEDICINES

PEOPLE ARE DYING BECAUSE THEY CANNOT ACCESS EXISTING MEDICINES
- The World Health Organization estimates that ten million people die every year because they cannot afford existing drugs. - Approximately one-third of the global population does not have regular access to essential medicines, and in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia this figure rises to well over 50%. - Additionally, an estimated 100 million people are pushed into poverty each year by the high costs of medical care.

YALE AND STAVUDINE

Yale University created one of the first AIDS drugs, a molecule known as stavudine. Within a few years of its release, stavudine had revolutionized AIDS treatment, and helped change HIV/AIDS from a rapid death sentence to a manageable if difficult condition. Wo r k i n g w i t h s t u d e n t s o n campus, Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) urged Yale, as the patent- holder, to help increase access to the urgently needed drug. MSFs request expanded into a student

UNIVERSITIES CAN CHANGE THIS

- B e c a u s e m a n y l i f e - s av i n g m e d i c a l technologies are developed in campus laboratories, universities wield substantial leverage when they license these technologies to pharmaceutical companies. - Our proposal is simple: Every universitydeveloped drug, diagnostic, vaccine, or medical device should be licensed with a concrete, effective, and transparent strategy to make affordable versions available in poor countries for essential medical care.

campaign that gave birth to - Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Universities Allied for Essential (UAEM) is a student-run campaign with Medicines. Under pressure, Yale and Bristol- chapters at academic institutions around the Myers Squibb jointly announced world. that they would allow generic - Our goal is to make certain that medicines manufacturers of Stavudine to and other medical technologies discovered on compete in certain markets, thus lowering the price of the drug our campuses are made affordable and from $1600 per patient per year to accessible to patients in developing countries. just $55 a 96% reduction. -Too often, universities have failed to live up to this expectation, both by failing to responsibly manage the essential medical technologies emerging from their labs, and by taking public positions on issues that favor the interests of the pharmaceutical industry over the interests of patients.

WHAT WE DO

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

- To learn more about UAEM and join our cause, please visit our website at www.EssentialMedicine.org. Click on Chapters to find out if UAEM is already on your campus or to learn how to start your own chapter.