Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) Europe – Berlin
MAY 18th, 2020

Today, May 18th, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), in collaboration with multiple American medical student organizations, has launched an interactive mapping tool that highlights key research universities and institutions that are receiving taxpayer money to develop novel diagnostics, therapeutics, and/or vaccines for COVID-19. The tool powerfully demonstrates the indispensable role of universities, public research institutions and public funding in the development of novel medical technologies. By visualizing where public funding is being directed, this tool contributes to transparency regarding the current significant levels of public investment and aims to hold research universities and institutions accountable to their social responsibilities to the public by ensuring any resulting technologies will be affordable and accessible to all.

The process of innovation in biomedical R&D is deeply collaborative, drawing on a wide range of communal and public knowledge, which is then developed at institutions like universities, and this public contribution is frequently under recognised in the final ownership and pricing of health technologies. UAEM aims to promote universities’ role in research, whilst holding these institutions to account for the public funding they receive, advocating for the adoption of responsible licensing and for the products of medical innovation as global public goods.

The tool stems from an ongoing pilot university mapping project, brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic in light of the urgent need and race for a solution. UAEM’s mapping tool will involve a staged release of publicly available funding data by region, including the United States, Canada, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Austria. Our analysis boldly highlights the crucial role of public funds provided to university laboratories or university-affiliated hospitals to conduct COVID-19 research, and the key role that universities can play in determining the access of people across the world to COVID-related medical technologies

“We’re calling on all universities to uphold the principles of equitable access to the products of medical innovation by ensuring that any and all licensing agreements for COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines developed at universities are non-exclusive, transparent, worldwide, royalty free and contain strong access and affordability conditions.”

-Universities Allied for Essential Medicines

Since the beginning of the pandemic, research on COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics has rapidly increased, each playing a critical role in curbing the disease and saving lives. However, it is not enough to just have a vaccine; rather, it is about ensuring that access to these products is equitable and affordable, and available to all those who need it most.

The European Commission has mobilised €1 billion in grants from the EU Horizon 2020 programme. National governments have pledged large sums for research on COVID-19, for example, the U.K. government has unlocked more than €441M, the Dutch government announced the allocation of €42 million in early April, and the German ministry of health has committed €150 million specifically to universities. In addition to the current investments, a significant proportion of the research on novel COVID-19 technology builds upon decades of publicly funded research on other viral diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, Ebola, and influenza.

UAEM’s mapping tool illustrates the magnitude of public funding that has been directed to university research on COVID-19. These findings will be leveraged to call on universities to ensure that COVID-19 health technologies developed with their contributions are widely and equitably accessible. As a first step, universities are encouraged to sign on to the Open COVID pledge, however, given this pledge only covers COVID-19 technology for the duration of the pandemic universities should also be encouraged to implement a more permanent socially responsible licensing policy such as UAEM’s ETAF (Equitable Technology Access Framework) policy.

UAEM activists across Europe will be working with universities, students and researchers to promote equitable licensing practices and raise awareness of the important role of universities, public funding and public knowledge in the development of COVID-19 technologies.

www.publicmeds4covid.org

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

North America: administrator@uaem.org
Europe: office@uaem.org

Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) is a global network of university students
organizing on their campuses to ensure that publicly-funded medicines are accessible and
affordable to the public.