In spite of noteworthy medical progress in the last decades, innovation and access to health technologies remain multi-dimensional and global challenges. The High-Level Panel on Innovation and Access to Health Technologies was established by the United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to redress the policy incoherencies between human rights, trade, intellectual property and public health. The Panel’s report calls, among others, for a binding R&D Convention, the full use of TRIPS flexibilities, greater transparency, and a UN General Assembly Special Session no later than 2018.
The Global Health Centre (GHC) has invited Ruth Dreifuss, Co-Chair of the Panel, for a dialogue session to discuss strategies and accountability frameworks to accelerate progress on innovation and access to health technologies in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The event will be moderated by Professor Michel Kazatchkine, Senior Fellow with the GHC and UN Secretary General Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Ruth Dreifuss was the Co-Chair of the High Level Panel on Innovation and Access to Health Technologies. She studied economics at the University of Geneva and enjoyed a varied professional career: she has been secretary, editor, social worker, civil servant in the field of development and international cooperation, and one of the leaders of the federation of labour unions. The Swiss Parliament elected her to the federal government, in which she acted as Federal Councillor from 1993 to 2002. She headed the Federal Department of Home Affairs, in charge namely of public health, social security, and scientific research and higher education. She was the President of the Swiss Confederation for the year 1999. During the last fourteen years, she has been active in the fields of public health and intellectual property, and advocating for death penalty abolition and drug policy reform.
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