Geneva, 10 October 2016 —The MPP announced the expansion of its Expert Advisory Group (EAG), an independent group of advisors providing counsel on licensing agreements, to include eleven new members with hepatitis C and tuberculosis expertise. The newly constituted EAG will now operate in three subgroups focusing on one of MPP’s disease areas: HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis. Kees de Joncheere, most recently Director of the Essential Medicines and Health Products Department at the World Health Organization (WHO), will serve as the EAG’s new Vice Chair joining its current Chair, Maximiliano Santa Cruz of Chile.

“With the expansion of our mandate to new diseases areas, the MPP must broaden its support base and solicit the advice of a range experts to guide our licence programmes,” said Greg Perry, MPP’s Executive Director. “We are pleased to welcome such a distinguished group of panelists from key access to medicines areas to our EAG.”

MPP’s EAG now includes representatives from regulatory, IP licensing and law, treatment provision, public health and medicines policy fields, as well as from HIV, hepatitis C and TB communities and patient groups. New members include Nathan Ford, a scientific officer with the Department of HIV/AIDS and Global Hepatitis Programme of WHO and head of WHO’s Guidelines Review Committee, providing input on MPP’s HIV subgroup. Ellen ’t Hoen, MPP’s first Executive Director; Isabelle Andrieux-Meyer, an HIV and hepatitis C medical advisor at the Access Campaign of Doctors Without Borders (MSF); Raquel Peck, Chief Executive Officer of the World Hepatitis Alliance (WHA); Ludmila Maistat, Senior Programme Manager of Hepatitis/HIV Policy and Advocacy for the International HIV/AIDS Alliance; and Philippa Easterbrook, Senior Scientist in the Global Hepatitis Programme, WHO’s HIV Department, now serve on the hepatitis C subgroup.

The MPP’s new tuberculosis subgroup welcomes Christian Lienhardt, an infectious disease specialist and clinical epidemiologist at WHO; Jennifer Cohn, Director of Innovation at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation; Jan Gheuens, Deputy Director for TB Drugs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Mayowa Joel, Programme Director, Development Centre in Nigeria.

The Expert Advisory Group was established in 2011. The group evaluates draft licence agreements for the MPP and provides suggested improvements to ensure greater access to priority medicines in developing countries. The 11 new experts join 11 other members of the EAG who serve in their personal capacities.

Please see the full list of EAG members and biographies here.