This panel discussion brings together key individuals influencing the global access to medicines. As the 2nd event in our King’s College Global Health Seminars, we focus on the access to medicines for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). NTDs comprise a set of 20 diseases afflicting more than 1.9 billion people worldwide. These individuals are the poorest of the poor and mostly reside in areas of low-income countries that lack safe water and adequate sanitation. The donation of drugs for NTDs is one of the largest drug donation programmes, which partners governments from low-income countries, the World Health Organization, and the pharmaceutical industry

A King’s College collaboration with the Wellcome Trust – Cambridge Centre for Global Health Research, Department of Pathology, and Cambridge-Africa Programme.

Panelists

• Prof. Peter Hotez – Dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, USA; Professor of Tropical Pediatrics. https://peterhotez.org
• Mr. Andy Wright – Vice President of Global Health and Access Programmes at GlaxoSmithKline. https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/behind-the-science/access-to-healthcare/
• Dr. Jutta Reinhard-Rupp – Head of Merck Global Health Institute. https://www.merckgroup.com/en/company/responsibility/our-strategy/health/mghi.html
• Mr. Julien Potet – Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Policy advisor for NTDs & vaccines in MSF’s Access to Medicine Campaign. https://www.msfaccess.org

Some topics to be covered:

• Implications of vertical drug programmes
• Role of pharmaceutical companies in NTD control/elimination
• Expansion of preventive chemotherapy distribution vs. investment in the development of new vaccines and medicines 

Please register here.

A podcast of the panel session is available here and the highlights of the discussion have been summarized into a Twitter Moment.