Back in March STOPAIDS and the Student Stop AIDS Campaign (Restless Development) joined access to medicine activists from across Europe in Madrid for a meeting that launched a new platform to push for pharmaceutical R&D reform.
Attended by 40 representatives from patient rights groups and NGOs, the meeting combined training and learning sessions with discussion and agreement on a strategy to push forward the demand for a more just and equitable approach to developing new medicines. STOPAIDS Advocacy Manager, Diarmaid McDonald was involved in the planning for the meeting and I joined along with Flo Goddard from ACTUP London.
Members of the Spanish patient movement who have been fighting to secure access to Hep C treatment sofosbuvir ‘Plataforma de Afectados por Heptatitis C‘ , participated in the meeting and spoke about their campaign which included the occupation of a Madrid hospital and a mass rally which brought 100,000 people onto the streets.
The new pan-European platform will hopefully strengthen STOPAIDS work on R&D reform and our Missing Medicines campaign by building allies across the continent as we work towards key moments of opportunity in the coming months, including the 2016 World Health Assembly when the proposed R&D treaty will be discussed again.
Our first action is the TTIP Day of Action this Saturday – to get involved contact Saoirse at saoirse@restlessdevelopment.org