January 24, 2014

Patents and Politics — How the HIV Crisis Changed Pharmaceutical Intellectual Property Policies: Dr. Ellen ‘t Hoen

The Global Medicines Program, along with the Department of Global Health and the Office of Graduate Medical Education, hosted Dr. Ellen ‘t Hoen for the following event:  Patents and Politics — How the HIV Crisis Changed Pharmaceutical Intellectual Property Policies on Wednesday, November 14, 2012.  Ellen ’t Hoen, lawyer and independent consultant in medicine policy and law, specializes in access to medicines and intellectual property.  She established and served as Executive Director of the Medicines Patent Pool, funded by UNITAID, with the mission to improve the health of people living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries by increasing access to life-saving medicines. [See TEDxZurich 2012: “The TEDxZurich 2012 Medicines Patent Pool – Pooling patents for the global common good”]. Before establishing the Medicines Patent Pool, Ellen ’t Hoen Ellen ’t Hoen was Director of Policy and Advocacy for the Médecins sans Frontières’ (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines (1999-2009). She has been listed numerous times as one of the 50 most influential people in intellectual property in the world by the journal Managing Intellectual Property, and she authored the book The Global Politics of  Pharmaceutical Monopoly Power (2009).