Speaker Biographies

Pharmaceutical Products, TRIPS, and the Doha Round:
What Are the Stakes?

September 2, 2003

Amir Attaran is an immunologist and lawyer by training. His current research emphasizes the subject of health and development in poor countries. His current publications and research interests include studying the scarcity of international aid for control of epidemic and pandemic, the process of policy development in international aid for health, and the role of international patent law on access to medicines. His articles have been published in the Lancet, JAMA, the Yale Journal of International Law, and others. From 2001 to 2003, he was an invited speaker, including in plenary lectures, at the International AIDS Conference, the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine, the U.S. House of Representatives, and many universities and research institutes. His work on health policy has also appeared in the Washington Post, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, Globe and Mail (Canada), and Boston Globe, among others. Mr. Attaran has held faculty positions at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale University, and he is currently an associate fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, and director of the Idealith Research Foundation, Boston. He is also a Barrister & Solicitor of the Law Society of British Columbia, Canada.

Rubens Antonio Barbosa became ambassador of Brazil to the United States in June 1999, in addition to having served in a wide variety of international affairs positions since 1960. From 1988 to 1993, he played a key diplomatic role in the conception, construction, and management of Mercosur, the Southern Common Market. At this time, he was at first the Brazilian ambassador to ALADI, the Latin American Integration Association, and then became the Brazilian under secretary general of foreign relations for trade, regional integration and economic affairs. His next assignment was as ambassador to the Court of St. James in London from 1994 to 1999. While serving in this role, he was also president of the Association of Coffee Producing Countries.Claude E. Barfield is a resident scholar and the director of trade and science policy studies and technology policy studies at AEI. He is the author or editor of a number of books on trade and science policy, including the recently published Free Trade, Sovereignty, Democracy: The Future of the World Trade Organization. In 1999, he coauthored Tiger by the Tail: China and the World Trade Organization with Mark Groombridge. Before coming to AEI, he served in the Ford administration, on the staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and as a costaff director of the President’s Commission for a National Agenda for the Eighties.John E. Calfee is a resident scholar at AEI. From 1980 to 1986, he served in the Bureau of Economics at the Federal Trade Commission. Mr. Calfee taught marketing and consumer behavior in the business schools of the University of Maryland at College Park and Boston University, and he was a visiting senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of Prices, Markets, and the Pharmaceutical Revolution (AEI Press, 2000) and Fear of Persuasion: A New Perspective on Advertising and Regulation (distributed by AEI Press, 1997).Michael Kremer is a professor of economics at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He previously served as a teacher in Kenya. He founded and was the first executive director of WorldTeach, a nonprofit organization that places 100 volunteer teachers annually in developing countries (1986-1989). He is a recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship and a Presidential Faculty Fellowship. Mr. Kremer’s recent research includes work on the evaluation of health and educational programs in developing countries; incentives for research and development on malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, and other diseases affecting developing countries; and sovereign debt. His articles have been published in economics journals, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.James Mendenhall is the assistant U.S. trade representative for services, investment, and intellectual property. Mr. Mendenhall was previously deputy general counsel. Before joining the USTR in September 2001, he was a partner in the Atlanta-based law firm of Powell Goldstein Frazer & Murphy, where he focused on World Trade Organization litigation, international arbitration, and trade policy.Patricia Atkinson Roberts is the senior officer of commercialization and corporate partnerships at the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI). She is responsible for the business and contractual aspects of relationships with MVI partners. She will also develop and execute MVI’s strategies for guaranteeing the financing and distribution of the malaria vaccine. Previously, Ms. Roberts served as director of business development at Teledesic LLC, which focused on the development of a satellite-based communications network to ensure broadband access for all points on the globe. She was responsible for developing and managing industrial and distribution relationships with European-based partners and developing commercial strategies for market access. Ms. Roberts most recently led the U.S. office of a European venture capital firm. She earlier served as an adviser to the secretary of communications of Argentina.

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