The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) is a United Nations-backed public health organisation working to increase access to, and facilitate the development of, life-saving medicines for low- and middle-income countries. Executive Director Charles Gore outlines the MPP's goals, how it interacts with an industry - innovative pharma - known to jealously guard its intellectual property, and why voluntary licensing has the potential to foster mutually beneficial outcomes, not least access to medicines for patients that would otherwise go without.
What we are trying to do is to get new drugs that are patented into low- and middle-income countries as soon as possible – trying to essentially shrink the gap between when they are available after they first become available in high-income countries
