Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #113096

Polly F. Harrison, PhD, Alliance for Microbicide Development, 8484 Georgia Avenue, Suite 940, Silver Spring, MD 20910, 301-587-9690, pharrison@microbicide.org

At the global level, the issues surrounding the pharmaceutical sector spotlight real and potential conflicts between free market enterprise and public health policy. The pharmaceutical industry is a powerful engine in global economic development, and shocks to that industry can send the stock market index down. Industry development strategies are naturally designed to maximize profits in lucrative (and relatively healthy) markets with minimal attention to maximizing health status around the world, and these strategies have attracted increasing sharp criticism from civil society, which sees health as a human right and public good. This panel will include presentations on four recently established and innovative organizations who are responding to these basic conflicts in the pharmaceutical sector, including:

The Alliance for Microbicide Development (AMD) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1998 to speed work on microbicides, a range of products, potentially in gel, cream, film or suppository form, being developed to prevent transmission of HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections. The Alliance took on a change agent roll at a time when progress in microbicide research and development was slow, fragmented, and severely under-funded. A coalition that now consists of over 200 representatives from small biopharmaceutical companies, nonprofit research institutions, and health advocacy groups, the Alliance is a catalyst for speeding work on microbicides through: advocacy; education; monitoring; research; trouble-shooting; convening and seeking consensus around critical issues; participating in a range committed and ad hoc partnerships; and networking across constituencies, disciplines, and sectors. The organization has shaped the microbicide field and is a principal and authoritative source of information about progress (or lack of progress) in microbicide research and development, a neutral and objective convener and advocate around critical challenges in microbicide science and policy, and a leader in interactions with the media and the makers of science policy.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe how economic incentives and health as a public good are in conflict within the pharmaceutical sector.
• Describe, discuss and evaluate creative organizational responses to this conflict.

Keywords: Access, Policy/Policy Development

Related Web page: www.microbicide.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation