This event will take place in New York and participation is possible online and in person. However, in person participation requires a personal invitation by the organizers. Convened by "Medicines for Future (M4F)" initiative, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Austria, and Cape Bio Pharms, South Africa, in cooperation with the International Society for Plant Molecular Farming.Agenda Venue: Hybrid; Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations in New York, and Video Conference
Date: Tuesday, September 27th, 2022, 10:00 am - 12:30 pm EDTOrganizers: Medicines for Future (M4F), represented by Josef Glössl, Declan Kirrane and Kurt Zatloukal, and Cape Bio Pharms, represented by Belinda Shaw
Mr Declan Kirrane ISC Intelligence, Moderator Prof Josef Glössl M4F and BOKU, Co-Moderator10:00
Welcome Ambassador Dr. Alexander Marschik (Host) Permanent Mission of Austria to the UN in New York
10:10
Introductory Remarks Intisar Soghayroun Minister of Science and currently President of Khartoum University, Sudan
Prof. Frédéric Ouattara Minister of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, Burkina Faso
Dr Danuma Usman Member of the Nigerian Parliament. Chairman of the Science Committee
Dr Cynthia Asare Bediako Chief Director, Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Ghana
10:20
Setting the Scene: Infectious Diseases as Global Health Challenges Prof. Florian Krammer Dept Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
New Collaboration Model for Addressing Global Health Challenges Prof. Kurt Zatloukal M4F and Medical University of Graz, Austria
10:40
Plant Molecular Farming (PMF) as Key Enabling Technology Prof. Julian Ma Institute for Infection and Immunity, St George's, University of London, UK
Prof. Inge Broer International Society for Plant Molecular Farming (ISPMF)
11:00 The
Versatility of PMF as Demonstrated by Case Studies Prof. Waranyoo Phoolcharoen Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and Baiya Phytopharm, Thailand
Dr. Martín Salinas Moolec Science, BIOCERES, Argentina (tbc)
Dr. Ofra Chen Transalgae, Weizmann Science Park, Rehovot, Israel (tbc)
Belinda Shaw Cape Bio Pharms, South Africa
Prof. Edwin Scott Asemota Collaborative Malaria Plant Vaccine Development Initiative, Nigeria and Germany
11:25
The Future Perspectives of PMF Prof. Ed Rybicki Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Cape Town, South Africa
11:35
Moderated Panel Discussion: Policy Framework for Stimulating Cooperative Capacity Building for Better Access to Medicines and VaccinesParticipants: Speakers from above plus additional
Panelists Ben Durham Department of Science and Innovation, Pretoria, South Africa
Dr Juan Miguel González-Aranda LifeWatch ERIC, Madrid, Spain
Dr. Hermann Garden Policy Advisor Health Innovation, OECD
Prof. Motlalepula Matsabisa Faculty Health Sciences, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa
12:25
Outlook and next steps Declan Kirrane12:30 End
Rationale for the sessionEqual access to affordable medicines and vaccines is a key goal in SDG 3b, Good Health and Well-Being. However, the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how disparate infectious diseases affect global health systems and highlighted global inequality for R&D, manufacturing and ultimately vaccine accessibility. Specifically, as a result of widespread economic inequities millions of people in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) lacked appropriate access to medicines because the domestic biopharmaceutical production capacity was limited. High global demand of biopharmaceuticals (vaccines or medicines) further aggravated the supply shortage, with detrimental consequences for the health of LMIC populations. A route forward to improve the resilience of LIMC against similar global pandemics in the future is to build local medical infrastructure and to educate skilled people capable of managing emergency situations in public health.
The current COVID-19 pandemic clearly showed that centralized approaches to vaccine development, manufacture and distribution were inefficient and unequal. Therefore, we would like to present a new model for global collaboration and capacity building in the context of the UNGA77 Science Summit. Diversifying biopharmaceutical production into technologies that are less depended on expert staff and specialized infrastructure can reduce production costs and improve regional independence of LMIC from global supply chains. At the UNGA77 science session, Plant Molecular Farming (PMF) will be highlighted as one such diversifying options because it is an innovative and versatile technology platform to achieve a simple, scalable and low-cost yet versatile and reliable production of biopharmaceuticals.
In the Science Session “
Green Medicines - Plant Molecular Farming and New Collaboration Model for Addressing Global Health Challenges”, the collaboration between the initiative Medicines for Future (M4F), the International Society of Plant Molecular Farming (ISPMF) and the further participating organizations aims to contribute increasing the accessibility of essential medicines to people in low- and middle-income countries.
For a full description of the session please see the uploaded pdf file below