5 Universities to Use Licensing to Provide Cheaper Drugs to Poor and to Developing World

Five leading research universities pledged today to do more to ensure that poor people and developing nations can get access to new drugs based on inventions coming from academic research, according to Bloomberg News. The five signers are Harvard University (which has already used licensing terms in deals to promote this “global access”) as well as the University of Pennsylvania and Boston, Brown, and Yale Universities. The push for global access comes from the campuses and from Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, which has also been urging Congress and research universities to oppose a measure in legislation to overhaul the health-care system that would give drug companies 12 years of exclusive rights to certain new kinds of drugs.