Universities Allied for Essential Medicines North America Corporation

International Public Health/International Health: Access Initiative: One of our critical campaigns throughout the past year has been the Free the Vaccine for Covid-19 campaign. As part of the campaign to make COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines, sustainably priced, available to all, and free at the point of delivery and to grow the access to medicines movement, a number of actions were planned and executed. In April 2022, UAEM students in conjunction with partners and advocates gathered in Boston in front of the pharmaceutical corporation Moderna to fight for a peoples vaccine. This was the day of the Moderna shareholders meeting at which Modernas profits were to be announced. During the summer of 2022, the Free the Vaccine campaign season five training took place bringing together a team of global, experienced activists to design actions around the UN General Assembly in New York. UAEM students and allies held an in-person interactive and engaging action to educate the public and spread awareness of vaccine apartheid. We set up a lemonade stand offering a chance at free lemonade. Participants spun a wheel with different countries, and they would receive or not receive lemonade based on what country they landed in. This mimicked global vaccine access or lack thereof in different countries. We also designed a Wordle graphic to be projected onto a building in New York City in a high-trafficked area. We were successful in engaging the public. Further, in October 2022, UAEM partnered with the Trade Justice Education Fund to put on a Student Week of Action to increase global access to COVID test and treatment. The Week of Action was an effort to spread awareness and amplify our plea for increased global access to testing and treatments prior to a key World Trade Organization general council meeting. Registered students were given a Test and Treatment Access Activist briefing and training. Throughout the week, students were engaged on the planned Campus Day of Action, Global Test and Treat Letter Writing, Rally Day, and Social Media Day (using prepared social media toolkit to put out messages on their chapter or personal account). In all, a number of UAEMs most active chapters joined the week of action and held tabling events on their campus. Another critical campaign in 2022 was our campaign at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to Take Back Xtandi, a publicly-funded prostate cancer drug developed on the campus continued to make very promising advances. In 2018, UAEM began organizing with students, medical residents, and researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to improve access to enzalutamide, brand name Xtandi, a publicly-funded prostate cancer drug developed on the campus and then being sold at over $120,000 per patient per year in the United States and priced out of reach in India. The goals were to urge the university leadership to: 1) drop the universitys patent claim in India on the drug and 2) introduce a new University of California (UC) wide licensing agreement that would improve access to medicines developed on the campus. During 2019 and early 2020 a few members of our UAEM community were followed by a documentary team from Participant Media, and portions of this campaign are covered in the new documentary White Coat Rebels that was finally released in 2022. The documentary examines the pharmaceutical industry from the perspective of advocacy and those who are fighting against its power and influence. The Xtandi campaign led to discussions with UCLAs office of Science and Technology, and due to years of sustained UAEM students organizing and advocacy worth, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) finally published the "Affordable Access Plan (AAP)". The AAP provision is intended to better address the needs of underserved populations so that going forward medicines developed on the UCLA campus are not priced out of reach, in particular in low- and middle-income countries. Encouraged by the success, UAEM students are now organizing across campuses to urge their institutions to introduce similar in order to secure the policy for multiple universities which would set a new precedent for the UC system.

Medical Specialties Research: Innovation Initiative: One of our focus areas in 2022 has been the Canada University Report Card. The report card team has been working on collecting and analyzing data for the 2022 Canada Report Card, which serves to measure the commitments of the U15 - the top 15 research universities in Canada - to research that meets the needs of people worldwide. The Report Card utilizes publicly-available and self-reported information in order to assess how the top 15 Canada biomedical research universities are i) investing in addressing neglected health needs of low and middle income countries, ii) whether their licensing policies are socially responsible - in order to ensure accessibility of treatments discovered at these universities, iii) how these universities are empowering future global health leaders to recognize the importance of biomedical research and IP on access to publicly-funded health products and iv) what transparency mechanisms they are implementing. The Report Card is projected to come out in early 2023, and is a critical advocacy tool for chapters to help keep their universities accountable for the ways that their research policies affect global health and access to medicines. With the release of the new Report Card our chapters will have updated tools at their disposal for further 2023 advocacy. Further information can be found at: www.globalhealthgrades.org Furthermore, UAEM continues to campaign for transparency in the registration and reporting of clinical trial data. Improving clinical trial transparency is crucial for defining the direction of biomedical innovation, and enabling access to safe and effective medicines for people. Having publicly accessible information on the outcomes of completed clinical trials allows researchers to fine-tune future studies, identify unmet medical needs among specific populations, and proactively address the risks and benefits of novel health technologies. A lack of transparency in reporting the results of clinical trial data can increase bias in studies (due to reduced data), slows down the rate of innovation of new medicines, and ultimately may lead to patient harm or death. UAEM North America has partnered with partnered with the New York University (NYU) Technology Law and Policy (TLP) Clinic to file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) regarding clinical trial enforcement. For the first time ever, the FDA issued a warning to Acceleron Pharma, Inc., a developer of experimental kidney cancer treatment. FDAs Notice of Noncompliance is the first time any more meaningful enforcement action has been taken by either FDA or NIH. The company was notified after failing to submit their Phase 2 drug trials from last year. In our ongoing investigation as part of our strategy to increase university compliance with FDAAA we have gathered evidence that over an eight-year period the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only sent a few dozen pre-notice letters to non-compliant sponsors suggesting they come into compliance. Going forward this advocacy work will continue at the chapter and national levels as part of our ongoing campaign to push universities to achieve 100% compliance in clinical trials transparency and become leaders in pushing for a more open and transparent biomedical R&D system.

International Public Health/International Health: Empowerment Initiative The UAEM North America Annual Conference was held virtually on October 2022 under the theme Building the Access to Medicines Movement. The conference was organized and hosted by UAEM Chapter at University of California, Berkeley. Around 90 new and returning students, allies, professors and experts in global health from around the world attend the virtual conference. North America annual conference is the cornerstone of UAEMs efforts to empower students and help create the next generation of student activists who care about health equity and justice in access to medicines. As in the previous years, the conference continued to focus on student-driven campaigns, skills-building training and organizing campaigns, while retaining expert-level panels and speakers. This years conference featured a powerful keynote speech from Dr. Dave A. Chokshi, Clinical Professor and the former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygieneand a UAEM alumnus. The conference also provided breakout workshops on a range of topics with introductory and advanced tracks to cater to the audiences diversity in academic background and experience with the issues, topics covered included How to Start a Chapter, Equitable Technology Access Framework (ETAF) at Universities, Affordable Access Plan, Transparency and How to Use the UAEM University Report Card. Despite being unable to gather in person, the participants left with high energy for the work ahead, as well as new ideas and understanding to build and strengthen their chapters and campus campaigns. Our goal was for students to leave the conference not only with increased knowledge and inspiration but with tangible and actionable skills to take back to their campuses and put into practice through targeted campus activities and beyond. As part of our empowerment initiative, in 2022 UAEM had a number of student fellow working on hands-on projects and actions. We held an in-person training lead by experienced members of UAEMs coordinating committee. The in-person training was the first time since February 2020 that many of our student leadership have been able to meet regionally in light of COVID-19 restrictions. The training focused on skill building for new student leaders to our movement and covered topics including personal narrative for advocacy, bird-dogging, introductions to all our current campaigns and tools. The event was an opportunity for students, staff, board and allies across our access to medicine movements to meet safely together outside, connect and build community. UAEM also continued to collaborate with our expanding network in Europe, Brazil, and other areas, and continued to provide global health leadership opportunities and experience through campus initiatives and service on UAEMs Coordinating Committee, Board of Directors, Global Governance Council and other positions to ensure global UAEM cooperation, collaboration and representation.