Priti Krishtel

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Priti Krishtel
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley, New York University
OrganizationInitiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge
Known forPharmaceutical patent reform activism

Priti Krishtel (née Radhakrishnan) is a lawyer who co-founded the United States-based nonprofit organization the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge.[1]

She is a critic of pharmaceutical intellectual property law and an advocate for patent reform.

Early life[]

Priti Krishtel was born as Priti Radhakrishnan and grew up in San Francisco.[2]

Education[]

She obtained her undergraduate degree from University of California, Berkeley and law degree from New York University.[2]

Career[]

After meeting, fellow lawyer, Tahir Amin at a protest about HIV drug prices in Bangalore, Krishtel quit her job at a Los Angeles law firm set up Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge.[1] The organization was funded by loan from friends and was set up in Krishtel's home in Bangalore[1] in 2006.[2]

Krishtel co-led a team that prevented Novartis from patenting leukemia drug Gleevec and has twice stopped Abbott Laboratories from patenting the HIV drugs.[1][3]

Views[]

In 2018, Krishtel argued that public enthusiasm for intellectual property rights reform is at an all time high,[4] and stated in 2020 that there is not a correlation between protecting patents of pharmaceutical companies and pharmaceutical innovation.[5] She has said that many medicinal patent applications, rather than being for new medicinal formulas, are trivial tweaks to drug administration regimes or process.[3]

In 2021, she accused US pharmaceutical companies of abusing intellectual property law to enhance their monopolistic positions.[3] In August 2021 she pointed out that 55% of people in developed countries have been vaccinated, while for people in developing countries the number is 1%.[6] In 2021, she stated that the free market ideology is not working - neither for people in developing countries, nor for people in USA.[7] She called Donald Trump's prioritization of vaccines for American citizens "the beginning of a new Hunger Games".[8] In 2021 she stated that intellectual property law reform alone would not be enough to improve access to COVID-19 vaccines and that technology transfer was also needed.[9]

Responding to criticism of the technology transfer argument in which it was said that local manufacturing of vaccines increased safety risks, she told CBS News that such defences of the status quo were racist assumptions, grounded in the false perspective that low income countries lacked manufacturing capacity and a safety regulatory framework.[10]

Awards[]

Krishtel is an Ashoka fellow.[11]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d Quigley, Fran (2017-11-17). "Patent Fighters: Taking on Big Pharma". Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Retrieved 2022-01-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ a b c "Alumna of the Month November 2009 | NYU School of Law". www.law.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2022-01-09.
  3. ^ a b c Sinha, Gunjan. "Why Americans pay through the nose for brand-name drugs". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  4. ^ "Pharma patent owners in the US are under pressure like they have never been before | IAM". www.iam-media.com. Retrieved 2021-11-17.
  5. ^ Weaver, Jasmin. "Ten years ago, I testified before Congress about drug pricing — and it's only gotten worse. Here's what's wrong, and how we may be able to fix it". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
  6. ^ "What is the COVID-19 situation in Southeast Asia?". www.medicalnewstoday.com. 2021-08-11. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  7. ^ "What to Know About Vaccine Nationalism". Teen Vogue. 2021-05-06. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  8. ^ Wise, Jacqui (2020-07-03). "Remdesivir: US purchase of world stocks sparks new "hunger games," warn observers". BMJ. 370: m2661. doi:10.1136/bmj.m2661. ISSN 1756-1833. PMID 32620681.
  9. ^ Kaplan, Thomas; Stolberg, Sheryl Gay; Robbins, Rebecca (2021-05-05). "Taking 'Extraordinary Measures,' Biden Backs Suspending Patents on Vaccines". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  10. ^ "Calls for drug companies to share vaccine formulas grow as global COVID crisis worsens". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  11. ^ "Priti Krishtel | Ashoka | Everyone a Changemaker". www.ashoka.org. Retrieved 2022-01-09.

External links[]

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