Leaders for Enabling Access to Pharmaceuticals Workshop

Olivia Bonardi

On November 1-2, 2019 I attended the LEAP (Leaders for Enabling Access to Pharmaceuticals) Workshop in Washington, DC. It was co-sponsored by the IDEA (Innovation + Design Enabling Access) Initiative at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the American Medical Student Association (AMSA). The workshop drew an incredible line up of speakers with diverse backgrounds in the public health and public interest advocacy fields. It also drew an impressive cohort of 20 attendees pursuing a range of degrees. We were undergraduate, medical, PhD, MPH, and MPP students, who all shared an interest in enabling equitable access to medicines.

I urge anyone interested in health advocacy to apply to the LEAP workshop, whether you heard a podcast that sparked an interest last week or you’re a PhD candidate in the field. For access to medicines beginners, the two days were packed with comprehensive presentations that covered a variety of issues including IP and patent laws, drug pricing, research and development (R&D) transparency, conflicts of interest, the opioid epidemic, and overviews of organizations that are working in this space. For students with some knowledge on these issues, we were introduced to relevant online transparency tools, legislation that allows you to request federal information, and techniques to build out our existing advocacy projects such as campaign strategy planning and tips for lobbying decision makers. Even students who are very familiar with this field were challenged to apply their knowledge in the breakout sessions where we were tasked with developing a presentation on our campaign strategy and writing an op-ed on our assigned topic. The five groups were asked to develop a campaign that ensures affordable access to one of the following: antibiotics (given the issue of antibiotic microbial resistance), CRISPR and CAR-T technologies (which were developed at universities), generic insulin and epi-pens, breast cancer treatment globally, and novel cystic fibrosis treatments. Though we only worked on one issue, presentations from our peers exposed us to all the topics discussed. The expert speakers gave us feedback which we were able to incorporate in breakout sessions on the second day.

The workshop was also an excellent networking opportunity for all of us. Beyond meeting like-minded students, we were able to make connections with public health experts. Anthony So, director of the IDEA Initiative and ReAct program at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, was the workshop’s main coordinator. Peter Lurie, a former director at the FDA, and leaders at Public Citizen also gave presentations. Patient advocates Laura Marston (self proclaimed “insurance ninja”) and Manon Ress spoke to us over lunch. Some AMSA student leaders presented as well. Matt Wellington, director of the campaign to Stop Overuse of Antibiotics at US PIRG delivered the campaign strategy session. Josh Sharfstien and Leana Wen, both former Commissioners of Health for Baltimore City spoke about the Opioid Epidemic. Leana Wen is also the former president of Planned Parenthood.

Unfortunately, because the workshop was held in DC, discussion was US-centric in the sense that we focused on US regulations, politics, and access issues. However, there was emphasis on how US pharmaceutical corporations effect international access to medicines through patent monopolies that are protected by the World Trade Organization. As a Canadian student I still found the lessons highly translatable, especially the ones on campaign strategy and online transparency tools. I plan to apply these lessons to my campaign for Clinical Trial Transparency in Canada with McGill’s Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) chapter.

Looking back on the workshop, I want to remember four key points: 1) Effective advocates focus on connecting over common ground. 2) Effective advocates never let a good crisis go to waste. 3) R&D isn’t as risky and costs aren’t as high as the pharmaceutical industry would like us to believe. More importantly, the data to prove them wrong is all within reach. 4) “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”…cheesy but true.

For more information on the LEAP workshop, UAEM-McGill, or our Clinical Trials Transparency campaign, please reach out to me at Olivia.bonardi@mail.mcgill.ca.

About the author

Olivia Bonardi is a U2 Anatomy and Cell Biology student. She’s passionate about enabling access to medicines, particularly when the medicines are developed at universities using tax-payer dollars.