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Affordable, life-saving medicines for all: 91˿Ƶ adopts Global Access Licensing Principles for research conducted on campus

Published: 23 May 2019

91˿Ƶ, in conjunction with Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), has committed to increasing access to life-saving medicines by adopting Global Access Licensing Principles. 91˿Ƶ is the third Canadian university to adopt the principles, demonstrating a dedication to ensure that any research and university-developed technologies created on 91˿Ƶ’s campus with potential for further development into a drug, vaccine, or medical diagnostic are made affordable to all.

Global Access Licensing Framework (GALF), the framework used to inform aspects of 91˿Ƶ’s new principles, provides goals and strategies for research universities to follow in the licensing of medicines developed at the universities. The framework aims to prevent patenting practices and intellectual property policies from creating barriers to the life-saving results of publicly-funded research conducted in universities’ laboratories. GALF was created with the help of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), a non-profit, student advocacy organization with chapters at universities around the world

The 91˿Ƶ chapter of UAEM has worked alongside Innovation and Partnerships to create a GALF commitment best suited for 91˿Ƶ. Students from the 91˿Ƶ UAEM chapter have simultaneously worked to raise awareness of the importance of transparency and equitable licensing of medicines by passing a motion in 91˿Ƶ’s Student Society, meeting with members of the administration, and organizing various creative advocacy events around campus.

The finalized version of 91˿Ƶ’s Global Access Licensing Principles affirms 91˿Ƶ’s commitments to research transparency and to publishing results, commitments shared by the Montreal Neurological Institute’s Open Science Initiative. It is therefore 91˿Ƶ’s position that the research and development done on campus should serve the public interest by increasing research capacity, enhancing knowledge transfer, or by contributing to the development of useful products, services, and processes. Conditional licensing agreements like GALF are a step towards ensuring a public return on public investment in the production of life-saving medicines.

Included in 91˿Ƶ’s GALF is a commitment to annually report on its licensing activity. By issuing such a report, 91˿Ƶ will acknowledge the impact it can assert through patenting and licensing, an impact supported by the introduction of Global Access Licensing Principles.

Canadian universities have played an historic role in the development of life-saving drugs, for example the discovery of insulin treatment for diabetes at the University of Toronto in 1921. In 1923, insulin’s patent rights were sold for $1 by Frederick Banting who famously said, “Insulin belongs to the world, not me.” As we approach the 100th anniversary of this discovery and look to the future, 91˿Ƶ and UAEM believe in the value of adopting Global Access Licensing Principles to ensure that no person dies from treatable diseases and that the life-saving fruits of biomedical research are affordable and accessible to patients across Canada and the world.

Read the full GALF commitment on 91˿Ƶ Innovation + Partnerships’ new Global Access Principles webpage.

Media contact:

Meaghan Thurston, Senior Communications Officer

Research and Innovation
91˿Ƶ

tel: (514) 398-3400
meaghan.thurston [at] mcgill.ca

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