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Wednesday, May 5, 2021, 11:00am – 12:15pm ET

Vaccine Equity: The Interdependence Challenge of Our Time

The OneShared.World Rise or Fall Together Events Series

Featured Speakers

Dr. Seth Berkley

CEO, Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO)

Dr. Lawrence O. Gostin

University Professor, Georgetown University, Founding O’Neill Chair in Global Health Law, Faculty Director, O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law; Director, World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National & Global Health Law

Dr. Margaret “Peggy” Hamburg

External Advisory Board Member, Department of Global Health, University of Washington; former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Executive Chairperson, Biocon Limited

Jamie Metzl (moderator)

OneShared.World Founder and Chair

Aurélia Nguyen

Managing Director, Office of the Covax Facility, Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance

About this Event

Online, Wednesday, May 5, 11:00 am – 12:15 pm ET

Although COVID-19 vaccines are showing tremendous efficacy against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, it’s becoming increasingly clear that a vaccination strategy that does not ensure some level of global vaccine equity will leave all of unnecessarily at risk.

We all know that ensuring global vaccine equity is morally justified, but it also might be the best strategy for ending the pandemic and building toward a recovery that helps everyone:

  • What are the key impediments to vaccine equity? What is the core problem we need to address?
  • It’s estimated that it will take 4.6 years to reach global herd immunity at the current and anticipated vaccination rate. What can/must we do to speed this up?
  • What is working and what is not working with COVAX and the ACT Accelerator? What concrete steps can be taken to do better?
  • The Intellectual Property debate has garnered a lot of attention over recent weeks and months. What’s the best way to produce more high-quality vaccines?

Please join us for this important conversation with voices leading global efforts to address the current, and potential future pandemics. This program is part of the OneShared.World Rise or Fall Together event series.

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Dr. Seth Berkley

A medical doctor and infectious disease epidemiologist, Dr Seth Berkley joined Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance as its CEO in August 2011, spearheading its mission to protect the world’s poorest children by improving access to new and underused vaccines.

In its 20 years of existence, Gavi has reached more than 820 million children in the 73 poorest countries. In 2015, Dr Berkley led Gavi to its second replenishment, raising US$ 7.5 billion in donor commitments. In June 2020, Dr Berkley led Gavi to its third successful replenishment, raising US$ 8.8 billion and exceeding the ask of at least US$ 7.4 billion in the presence of 42 heads of state. The ambitious goals for the 2021–2025 strategic period are to reach 300 million more children, preventing an additional 7–8 million deaths and contributing to a further US$ 80–100 billion in economic benefits.

Dr Berkley is co-leading the Vaccines Pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, working to develop and distribute a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine globally. In July 2020, Fortune honoured him with a leadership award at Brainstorm Health, calling Gavi “arguably the most productive multilateral health collaboration in history.”

Under Dr Berkley’s leadership, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance received the 2019 Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award for providing sustained access to childhood vaccines in the world’s poorest countries, as well as the Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 2020.

Prior to Gavi, in 1996, Dr Berkley founded the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), the first vaccine product development public-private sector partnership, where he served as President and CEO for 15 years. Under his leadership, IAVI created a virtual vaccine product development effort involving scientists from low-income countries, industry and academia – developing and testing HIV vaccines around the world. He also oversaw a global advocacy programme that ensured HIV vaccines received prominent attention in the media and in forums such as the G8, the European Union and the United Nations.

Previously, Dr Berkley served as an officer of the Health Sciences Division at The Rockefeller Foundation. He has worked for the Center for Infectious Diseases of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the Massachusetts Department of Public Health; and the Carter Center, where he was assigned as an epidemiologist at the Ministry of Health in Uganda. Dr Berkley played a key role in Uganda’s first national HIV sero-survey and helped develop its national AIDS Control Program.

He has been featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine; recognised by TIME magazine as one of “The TIME 100 – The World’s Most Influential People”; and named by WIRED magazine as among “The WIRED 25 – a salute to dreamers, inventors, mavericks, leaders.” His TED talks have been viewed by more than 2.3 million people, and he has published over 250 articles and opinion pieces. He has consulted or worked in more than 50 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Dr Berkley sits on a number of international steering committees and corporate and not-for-profit boards, including those of Gilead Sciences and the New York Academy of Sciences, and is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Geneva’s Institute of Global Health in the Faculty of Medicine.

Dr Berkley received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Brown University and trained in internal medicine at Harvard University. In 2013, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, for services to global public health and advancing the right to health care for all.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was elected as WHO Director-General for a five-year term by WHO Member States at the Seventieth World Health Assembly in May 2017. He is the first WHO Director-General to have been elected from multiple candidates by the World Health Assembly, and is the first person from the WHO African Region to serve as WHO’s chief technical and administrative officer. Immediately after taking office on 1 July 2017, Dr. Tedros outlined five key priorities for the Organization: universal health coverage; health emergencies; women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health; health impacts of climate and environmental change; and a transformed WHO.

Dr. Tedros served as Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012–2016. In this role he led efforts to negotiate the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, in which 193 countries committed to the financing necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Dr. Tedros served as Ethiopia’s Minister of Health from 2005–2012, where he led a comprehensive reform of the country’s health system. The transformation he led as Ethiopia’s Minister of Health improved access to health care for millions of people. Under his leadership Ethiopia invested in critical health infrastructure, expanded its health workforce, and developed innovative health financing mechanisms.

Born in the city of Asmara, Eritrea, Dr. Tedros holds a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) in Community Health from the University of Nottingham and a Master of Science (MSc) in Immunology of Infectious Diseases from the University of London. Dr. Tedros is globally recognised as a health scholar, researcher, and diplomat with first-hand experience in research, operations, and leadership in emergency responses to epidemics.

He received the Decoration of the Order of Serbian Flag in 2016, and was awarded the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Humanitarian Award in recognition of his contributions to the field of public health in 2011.

Dr. Lawrence O. Gostin

Lawrence O. Gostin is University Professor, Georgetown University’s highest academic rank conferred by the University President. Prof. Gostin directs the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and is the Founding O’Neill Chair in Global Health Law. He served as Associate Dean for Research at Georgetown Law from 2004 to 2008. He is Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University and Professor of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University.

Prof. Gostin is the Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. The WHO Director-General has appointed Prof. Gostin to high-level positions, including the International Health Regulations (IHR) Roster of Experts and the Expert Advisory Panel on Mental Health. He served on the Director-General’s Advisory Committee on Reforming the World Health Organization, as well as numerous WHO expert advisory committees, including on the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework, smallpox, genomic sequencing data, migrant health, and NCD prevention. He served on the WHO/Global Fund Blue Ribbon Expert Panel: The Equitable Access Initiative to develop a global health equity framework. He co-chaired the Lancet Commission on Global Health Law.

Professor Gostin has been at the center of public policy and law through multiple epidemics from AIDS and SARS, to Ebola, MERS, and Zika. He currently works closely with the Biden administration and global institutions like WHO, the World Bank, and Gavi on the COVID-19 response. He served on two global commissions to report on the lessons learned from the 2015 West Africa Ebola epidemic. He was also senior advisor to the United Nations Secretary General’s post-Ebola Commission. Prof. Gostin also served on the drafting team for the G-7 Summit in Tokyo 2016, focusing on global health security and Universal Health Coverage.

Prof. Gostin holds multiple international academic professorial appointments, including at Oxford University, the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa), and Melbourne University. Prof. Gostin served on the Governing Board of Directors of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health.

Prof. Gostin holds editorial appointments in leading academic journals throughout the world. He is the Legal and Global Health Correspondent for the Journal of the American Medical Association. He was also Founding Editor-in-Chief of Laws (an international open access law journal). He was formally the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics.

Prof. Gostin holds several honorary degrees. In 1994, the Chancellor of the State University of New York conferred an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree. In 2006, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Vice Chancellor awarded Cardiff University’s (Wales) highest honor, an Honorary Fellow. In 2007, the Royal Institute of Public Health (United Kingdom) appointed Prof. Gostin as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health (FRSPH). In 2012, the Chancellor of the University of Sydney – on the nomination of the Deans of the Law and Medical Schools – conferred a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa), presided by two Justices of Australia’s highest court—Justices Kirby and Haydon. In 2021, The Faculty of Public Health (United Kingdom) elected Prof. Gostin as an Honorary Member.

Prof. Gostin is an elected lifetime Member of the National Academy of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences. He has served on the National Academy’s Board on Health Sciences Policy, the Board on Population Health, the Human Subjects Review Board, and the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law. He currently serves on the National Academies of Sciences Engineering, and Medicine, Board on Global Health. Gostin chaired the National Academy’s Committee on Global Solutions to Falsified, Substandard, and Counterfeit Medicines. He has chaired National Academy Committees on national preparedness for mass disasters, health informational privacy, public health genomics, and human subject research on prisoners.

Prof. Gostin is also a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Fellow of the Hastings Center. In 2016, President Obama appointed Prof. Gostin to a six-year term on the President’s National Cancer Advisory Board to advise the nation on cancer prevention, research, and policy. He also serves on the National Institutes of Health Director’s Advisory Committee on the ethics of public/private partnerships to end the opioid crisis.

Prof. Gostin has led major law reform initiatives in the U.S., including drafting the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA) to combat bioterrorism (following the post-9/11 anthrax attacks) and the “Turning Point” Model State Public Health Act. He also spearheaded the World Health Organization and International Development Law Organization’s major report, Advancing the Right to Health: The Vital Role of Law.

Prof. Gostin’s proposal for a Framework Convention on Global Health – an international treaty ensuring the right to health – is now part of a global campaign, endorsed by the UN Secretary-General and Director of UNAIDS.

In the United Kingdom, Lawrence Gostin was the Legal Director of the National Association for Mental Health, Director of the National Council of Civil Liberties (the UK equivalent of the ACLU, now called “Liberty”), and a Fellow at Oxford University. He led Liberty during its 50th anniversary, started by George Orwell and EM Forster. He helped draft the Mental Health Act (England and Wales) and brought landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights.

Prof. Gostin’s books include: Global Health Security: A Blueprint for the Future (Harvard University Press, 2021); Global Health Law (Harvard University Press, 2014); Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint (University of California Press, 3rd ed., 2016); Public Health Law and Ethics: A Reader (University of California Press, 3rd ed., 2018); Foundations of Global Health Law and Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2020); Human Rights in Global Health: Rights-Based Governance for a Globalizing World (Oxford University Press, 2018); Law and the Health System (Foundation Press, 2014); Principles of Mental Health Law & Practice (Oxford University Press, 2010).

Gostin’s classic text, Global Health Law (Harvard University Press, 2014) is read throughout the world—translated and published in both simplified and traditional Chinese, in Korean, and in Spanish. Paul Farmer, Partners in Health, says of his book: Global Health Law is “more than the definitive book on a dynamic field. Gostin harnesses the power of international law and human rights as tools to close unconscionable health inequities — the injustices that burden marginalized populations throughout the world. Gostin presents a forceful vision, one that deserves a wide embrace.”

In a 2012 systematic empirical analysis of legal scholarship, independent researchers ranked Prof. Gostin 1st in the nation in productivity among all law professors, and 11th in in impact and influence. A 2017, 2018, and 2018 systematic empirical analysis all ranked Prof. Gostin 1st in the nation for citations and impact in health law.

Honors and Awards

The National Academy of Medicine awarded Prof. Gostin the Adam Yarmolinsky Medal for distinguished service to further its mission of science and health. He received the Public Health Law Association’s Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award “in recognition of a career devoted to using law to improve the public’s health” presented at the CDC. The New York Public Health Law Association conferred the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for extraordinary service to improve the public’s health. In 2015, the American Public Health Association awarded Prof. Gostin the Lifetime Achievement Award for his career in public health law. In 2018, Gostin was awarded the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award, Who’s Who highest honor.

Internationally, Prof. Gostin received the Key to Tohoko University (Japan) for distinguished service for human rights in mental health. In the United Kingdom, the National Consumer Council bestowed Prof Gostin with the Rosemary Delbridge Memorial Award for the person “who has most influenced Parliament and government to act for the welfare of society.”

Dr. Margaret Hamburg

Margaret Hamburg, MD is the former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, having stepped down from that role in April 2015 after almost six years of service.

Dr. Hamburg earned her B.A. from Harvard College, her M.D. from Harvard Medical School and completed an Internal Medicine residency at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Following completion of her formal medical training, Dr. Hamburg went to Washington to explore the world of health policy. She soon took on a role as Assistant Director of the National Institute of Allergy And Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She then became NYC Commissioner of Health, serving three years under Mayor Dinkins and three years under Mayor Giuliani.

In 1997, President Clinton named Dr. Hamburg Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She later became founding Vice President for Biological Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a foundation dedicated to reducing the threat to public safety from nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

In March 2009, President Obama nominated Dr. Hamburg for the post of FDA Commissioner. In that role, Dr. Hamburg emphasized the critical need for innovation in meeting medical care and public health needs. As Commissioner, she provided leadership on many groundbreaking activities, including: new authority to regulate tobacco products; implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act designed to transform food safety to a preventive system rather than simply responding when outbreaks occur; and modernization of the system for the evaluation and approval of medical products. Dr. Hamburg also worked hard to reposition FDA as an agency prepared for the challenges of globalization and was very active in efforts to establish new mechanisms for global governance of regulatory systems, including enhanced communication, collaboration and regulatory harmonization.

Dr. Hamburg is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American College of Physicians, as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, where she now serves as Foreign Secretary.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Ms. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is a pioneering biotech entrepreneur, a healthcare visionary, a global influencer and a passionate philanthropist. She is a pioneer of India’s biotech industry and founder of Biocon.

Ms. Mazumdar-Shaw is the proud recipient of two of India’s highest civilian honours, the Padma Shri (1989) and the Padma Bhushan (2005). She was also honoured with the Order of Australia, Australia’s Highest Civilian Honour in January 2020. In 2016, she was conferred with the highest French distinction – Knight of the Legion of Honour.

She has recently been named as the winner of EY World Entrepreneur of the Year™ 2020 Award, which is a testimony to her entrepreneurial journey of over four decades.  She has been elected as a full-term member of the Board of Trustees of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, and also serves as a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), USA.

Jamie Metzl

Jamie Metzl is the Founder and Chair of OneShared.World and a leading technology and geopolitical expert. A science fiction novelist, faculty member of Singularity University Exponential Medicine, and Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council, he was appointed in 2019 to the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on human genome editing. Jamie previously served in the U.S. National Security Council, State Department, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee and with the United Nations in Cambodia. Jamie appears regularly on national and international media discussing global issues and his syndicated columns and other writing are featured in publications around the world. He is the author of a history of the Cambodian genocide, the historical novel The Depths of the Sea, and the genetics sci-fi thrillers Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata, and the recent bestseller, Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity. An avid ironman triathlete and ultramarathoner, Jamie holds a Ph.D. from Oxford, a law degree from Harvard Law School, and is a graduate of Brown University.

Aurélia Nguyen

As Managing Director of the Office of the COVAX Facility, Aurélia Nguyen leads the coordination of procurement and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines for 190 economies through COVAX, the only global initiative working with governments and manufacturers worldwide to ensure fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. Previously, Aurélia served as Gavi’s Managing Director for Vaccines & Sustainability. Prior to joining Gavi, Aurélia held a variety of posts within GlaxoSmithKline, where latterly she led the development of GSK’s policies on access to medicines and vaccines in the developing world. She has also undertaken research for the World Health Organization (WHO) on generic medicines policies. Aurélia is a certified accountant and holds a Master’s degree in Health Policy, Planning & Financing from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the London School of Economics. In 2021, Aurélia was named to the TIME100 Next list.