LSIPR 50 2018: Levelling the medicines playing field

Speaking to LSIPR Leena Menghaney, regional head of Médecins Sans Frontières’ Access Campaign in South Asia, explains the importance of a balanced IP policy in fostering healthy generic competition.

Generic production in India has become vital to the supply of quality and affordable medicines to people in the developing world. But with a population of 1.3 billion people, and many living in poverty, India is a country where many need, but don’t have, access to medicine.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) set up the Access Campaign in 1999, shortly after the non-governmental organisation (NGO) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its pioneering humanitarian work in more than 80 countries. The campaign works to improve access to, and the development of, lifesaving and life-prolonging medicines, tests, and vaccines.

Leena Menghaney, regional head of the Access Campaign, is a lawyer by training but her role at MSF also involves policy development and campaigning. Her day-to-day work is varied but the objective is clear: to make sure as many people as possible, all over the world, have access to the medication they need. In that sense, she says, her work is very “futuristic”.