Tahir Amin, LL.B., Dip. LP., is a founder and CEO of the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK), a nonprofit organisation working to address structural inequities in how medicines are developed and distributed. He has over 25 years of experience in intellectual property (IP) law, during which he has practised with two of the leading IP law firms in the United Kingdom and served as IP Counsel for multinational corporations. His work focuses on re-shaping IP laws and the related global political economy to better serve the public interest, by changing the structural power dynamics that allow health and economic inequities to persist.
Amin and I-MAK have also put out a 10 point plan for the Biden-Harris administration to bring equity into the patent system, and their work is highlighted in the New York Times Editorial Board’s recent endorsement of patent reform. He is a former Harvard Medical School Fellow in the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine and TED Fellow. Amin has served as legal advisor/consultant to many international groups, including the European Patent Office and World Health Organization, and has testified before the U.S. Congress on intellectual property and unsustainable drug prices.
For Speaking Engagements
Select Op-Eds and Profiles
- CNBC: The problem with high drug prices isn’t ‘foreign freeloading,’ it’s the patent system
- STAT: Covid-19 has exposed the limits of the pharmaceutical market model
- Foreign Affairs: The Folly of Hoarding Knowledge in the COVID-19 Age
- Nature: Innovation alone won’t end COVID-19
- New York Times – The Argument Podcast: Could Spilling Big Pharma’s Secrets Vaccinate the World?