Position paper on Access and Innovation

Purpose

The European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG), on the initiative of the Policy Working Group (PWG) wants to develop a position paper on ‘access and innovation’ to reflect the consensus of the EATG membership on aspects related to timely access to quality ARVs and other medicines in the European and Central Asian region and globally, in line with other EATG’s objectives as patient expert group. The document should define EATGs position in the area and inform EATG’s policy, science related and other work.

Scope

The document will address access advocacy strategies, like supporting the expansion of Patent Pools to hepatitis C medicines and ensuring that middle-income countries can benefit from it, supporting TRIPS flexibilities to ensure access to medicines in Ukraine, India and globally.

Innovation is one of major EATG’s strengths through its essential role as HIV patient expert group in providing community advice to pharmaceutical companies on ethics and research on priority unmet medical needs; but also in protocol review of clinical trials and early access, expanded access before AIM, pharmacovigilance, product availability, needs of special groups, as well as to medical societies, regulators and the EU institutions on priority topics for research, regulation of clinical trials, early access…

Going beyond specific questions, the position paper should provide a framework to address fundamental questions relating to the current Research and Development model.

Working method and contacts

The paper development will be led by a Discussion Group (DG) comprising the ECAB chair, a Bod member, PWG co-chair and PWG advisor, appointed members. The DG will select the Writer and will work with the writer in identifying content and reviewing the first drafts, as well as provide and integrate comments from the EATG membership.

Within the process, a discussion paper and a set of literature will be prepared that would inform membership better on the issue and assist keeping the position paper concise. The working method is online (emails, skype conferences).

Deliverables and timeline

Technical requirements to deliverables

The deliverables need to be in British English, A4 format, single lined, integrate the EATG formatting. The position paper and the discussion paper should not exceed 4 and 10 pages respectfully. The set of main literature should be sorted and numbered by the same structure that is used in the discussion paper; it should have content (or relevant references from the discussion paper) and cover all topics, the number of materials should not exceed 15.

Amount of work and contractual arrangements

- Estimated number of days is 8.

- Maximum amount that is available for work is 2800 EUR.

- The Writer would be contracted by EATG which operates under the German law and using the EATG Policy Core funding. S/he will be paid in EUR through service contract; Writer pays taxes.

- Writer should provide short narrative reports and invoices indicating number of days used. The copyright (open license) will be with the EATG.

For the EATG members: The annual limit for contracted work by members is 1500 EUR/year (volunteer work). Therefore members applying to this position should registered as a consultant/company.

Requirements

- Legal or individual entity

- Excellent English

- Familiarity with access and R&D discussions, particularly in the HIV field

- Good writing skills

- Previous experience in building consensus and integrating differing opinions

Within the context of equal chances directives within Belgium – we want to explicitly encourage PLWHA and coming from the regions mentioned above (Europe and Central Asia) to apply.

How to apply