Medicines Patent Pool aims to increase access to, and facilitates the development of, life-saving medicines for low- and middle-income countries through an innovative approach to voluntary licensing and patent pooling. So wherever people live, they have rapid access to effective treatments.

The mission of Medicines Patent Pool is to increase access to, and facilitate the development of, life-saving medicines for LMICs. MMP does this through an innovative approach to voluntary licensing and patent pooling. MPP works with a range of partners — civil society, international organisations, industry, patient groups and governments — to prioritise and license novel and existing medicines and health technologies for people in these countries.

The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) is improving access to high quality affordable medicines and health technologies, particularly in developing countries, through patent pooling and non-exclusive voluntary licensing.

MPP’s mandate is to accelerate access to affordable quality treatments for people living with HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis, as well as HIV-associated co-morbidities. Since 2018, MPP has expanded its mandate to other patented essential medicines on the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Model List of Essential Medicines (EML) as well as medicines with strong potential for future inclusion on the EML. In 2020, we temporarily expanded MPP’s mandate to include COVID-19 treatments. In 2021, MPP expanded its mandate into the licensing of technology with an initial focus on COVID-19 vaccines and pandemic preparedness.

MPP was established in 2010 by Unitaid. Its vision was that non-exclusive voluntary licensing through a public health agency would enable more people in LMICs to access affordable treatments. Since then, MPP has succeeded in revolutionising the access landscape for new and essential treatments in resource-limited settings. MPP started its work in HIV, where there were access gaps in relation to several new antiretroviral medicines. There needed to be an established mechanism for licensing under public health-oriented terms and conditions that would enable manufacturers to develop quality-assured generic products, and make them available where people could not have accessed them otherwise. Today, more people can access better HIV treatments at affordable prices, and much faster than ever before. For instance, millions of people around the world have now gained access to dolutegravir (DTG) and DTG-based treatments at a much lowered price. You can read more on MPP’s contribution to making DTG available to people who need it most.