Access to Medicines
Overview
Public Citizen's Global Access to Medicines Program works with partners worldwide to improve health outcomes and save lives, through use of pharmaceutical cost-lowering measures including generic competition. We help civil society groups and public agencies overcome patent-based and other drug monopolies. Our work challenges Big Pharma's economic and political power.
Since 2000, generic competition has lowered the price of first-line HIV/AIDS medicine in many countries by 99%, from over $10,000 to under $100 per person year. This has produced a global revolution in HIV/AIDS treatment, allowing public health programs and donors to provide lifesaving medicine to over 6 million people. But much more remains to be done. High cost continues to limit access to second and third line HIV/AIDS medicines, as well as cancer, heart disease and many other treatments. In addition, industry innovation models overlook diseases affecting populations that cannot pay high prices, leading to fewer breakthroughs for diseases endemic, for example, to tropical countries. Better public policy is possible.
People
Peter Maybarduk, Director
Peter Maybarduk is Public Citizen's Global Access to Medicines Program Director. Maybarduk helps governments and civil society groups around the world use flexibilities in patent and trade rules to promote access to medicines for all. For example, Maybarduk's recent work with partners yielded major HIV/AIDS drug price reductions in Colombia and new state access to medicines policies enacted by the President of Ecuador. His work also focuses on protecting competition and access under intellectual property enforcement policies, and on appropriate policy responses to criminally adulterated or falsified medicines.
Maybarduk has co-founded and coordinated several volunteer-run advocacy and assistance groups, including International Professional Partnerships for Sierra Leone (IPPSL), dedicated to supporting public sector development in one of the world's least developed countries. He studied law at the University of California at Berkeley and anthropology at the College of William and Mary. Maybarduk is a composer and performer of music, currently recording his third album with producer J. Robbins.
Burcu Kilic, Ph.D., Legal Counsel
Burcu Kilic is an expert on legal, economi
c and political issues surrounding intellectual property law, policy, development and innovation. She provides technical and legal assistance to governments and civil society groups around the world and promotes their participation in international rule making. She has performed research and written extensively on these subjects.
She completed her Ph.D. at Queen Mary, University of London as a School of Law Fellow, where she taught International and Comparative Patent Law and Policy. She holds Masters degrees from University of London and Stockholm University in Intellectual Property Law and Law and Information Technology. During her studies, she received numerous awards and honors from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, European Union, Swedish Institute and Central Research Fund, University of London.
Stephanie Rosenberg, Campaign Organizer and Researcher
Stephanie Rosenberg is Campaign Organizer and Researcher for Public Citizen's Global Access to Medicines Program. Prior to joining Public Citizen, Rosenberg conducted field research on the access to medicines campaigns and the use of compulsory licensing in Brazil and Thailand and studied access to health services for children in South Africa. As a research assistant for Dr. Robert Bailey from the School of Public Health of University of Illinois at Chicago, she co-authored an article on male circumcision for HIV prevention in Kenya. Other research interests include the financing of state healthcare reform initiatives in the United States.
Rosenberg received an undergraduate degree in Health, Science, Society, and Policy from Brandeis University and an ErasmusMundus Master in Social Sciences and the Dynamics of Health and Welfare from L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France and Linköping University in Sweden. A proud Chicagoan, Rosenberg previously worked as a seat vendor at both the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox ballparks.
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