Expanding Capabilities and Challenging the Limits of Our Approach to Medicines Access

LSE Global Health Initiative is pleased to partner with LSE International Development's DV424 course and host Professor Padmashree Gehl Sampath – Senior Fellow, Mossavar Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School; founding Chief Executive Officer of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation; and Visiting Professor of Practice at the LSE.

For decades, the global community has been trying to fix the problem of access to medicines with new initiatives. While helping at the margins, many of these initiatives do not change the fundamental issues: lack of supply, lack of incentives to innovate and the lack of interest to supply to markets with little or no ability to pay.

This lecture will address the structural failures of medicines access and contextualise it in the current global health architecture to highlight the relevance of building domestic capabilities in the global South as the main – and perhaps only – sustainable option, both for greater access to medicines and greater global health security. Professor Gehl Sampath will also discuss the difficulties of setting up and operationalising new institutions that are aimed at changing the rules of the game.

This event will be chaired by Professor Ken Shadlen (LSE International Development).

This is an in-person only event. It is designed as a supplemental lecture for the LSE ID DV424 course, but all LSE students and faculty are welcome to attend.

Speaker:

Professor Padmashree Gehl Sampath is currently Senior Fellow, Mossavar Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Visiting Professor of Practice at the London School of Economics. She is also the founding Chief Executive Officer of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, and until recently served as the Senior Advisor to the President of the African Development Bank on Pharmaceuticals and Health.

A highly respected thought leader, Professor Sampath has over 25 years of expertise in public policy for the global pharmaceutical sector, including in technology transactions, intellectual property, licensing, business development and regulatory compliance, with a specific focus on Asia and Africa. She has worked and engaged in various high-level capacities with governments as well as with the global industry leaders, local manufacturers, regulators from national governments and international policy organizations, and other associations which influence business and government policies. During COVID-19, she served as the Chairperson of the Technical Advisory Group of the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (CTAP) of the World Health Organisation between 2021 and 2024, was the Senior Scientific Advisor to the Africa Centres for Disease Control (Africa CDC) leading the work on a market shaping and pooled procurement system for vaccines for Africa (2022-2023), and as Senior Special Advisor to the German International Agency and the German Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation advising on their vaccine investments in Africa (2021-2022). She continues as Special Advisor to the President of the African Development Bank for pharmaceuticals and health since 2022, having conceptualised the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation in this capacity.

Chair:

Professor Ken Shadlen is Professor of Development Studies in the Department of International Development of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Professor Shadlen works on the comparative and international political economy of development, with a focus on understanding variation in national policy responses to changing global rules.

LSE holds a wide range of events, covering many of the most controversial issues of the day, and speakers at our events may express views that cause offence. The views expressed by speakers at LSE events do not reflect the position or views of the London School of Economics and Political Science.