Did you know...  That one in every six people on this globe suffers from a disease of poverty?  That ten million people die each year from diseases that have available cures?  That, in the time it takes to read this slide, 5 people have died from preventable causes?

What is UAEM  Universities Allied for Essential Medicines  International organization  United States  Europe  Canada  Brazil  Works to construct creative, new approaches to improving the development and delivery of public health goods  Focuses on Neglected Tropical Diseases

National Objectives  to determine how universities can help ensure that biomedical end products, such as drugs, are made more accessible in poor countries and  to increase the amount of research conducted on neglected diseases, or those diseases predominantly affecting people who are too poor to constitute a market attractive to private-sector R&D investment.

Neglected Tropical Diseases  Buruli Ulcer  American Trypanosomiasis- Chagas Disease  Breakbone Fever- Dengue haemorrhagic fever  Guinea Worm Disease- Dracunculiasis  Fascioliasis  African Sleeping Sickness- Human African trypanosomiasis  Black Fever- Leishmaniasis  Leprosy  Elephantiasis- Lymphatic filariasis  Neglected zoonotic diseases  River Blindness- Onchocerciasis  Snail Fever- Schistosomiasis  Soil transmitted helminthiasis  Trachoma  Yaws

Why NTDs?  Called diseases of poverty  Generally in 3 rd world countries  Rich countries got rid of them long ago  Pharmaceutical companies have no financial gains  No money to be made means no new medicines developed

Patent Laws and Universities. When a University develops a drug, they sell rights to it via a license to a company. That company then patents the drug and has the only rights to produce it for a set number of years. This allows them to charge literally anything they want for profit. What can help? Global Access Policies with universities can allow the license to be accessible to generic companies as well as the big drug companies.

The d4t (stavudine) Story Scientists at Yale University discovered one of the first AIDS drugs, a molecule known as stavudine. Within a few years of its release, stavudine helped change HIV/AIDS from a rapid death sentence to a manageable condition. But stavudine was not reaching millions of desperately suffering people because they lacked the money to purchase it. Working with students on campus, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) urged Yale, as the patent-holder, to help increase access to the urgently needed drug. MSF’s request exploded into a student campaign that gave birth to Universities Allied for Essential Medicines.

The d4t (stavudine) Story Cont.   Yale and Bristol-Myers Squibb jointly announced that they would allow generic manufacturers of Stavudine to compete in certain markets, thus lowering the price of the drug from $15,000 per patient per year to just $55!

What is UAEM at CMU?  50 cents Campaign  Global Health Symposium  Health RSO Day  Global Access Week - Spring

Who can be a part of UAEM?  For ALL majors  Anything members want to focus on can be a goal of the organization  Chance to make a difference

What Can you Expect?  Biweekly meetings  Learn about other parts of the world  Work to raise money and educate people in the fights against tropical diseases  Have the chance to participate in a global movement  New organization = new ideas

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