Priti Krishtel, JD, is a health justice lawyer and co-founder and co-executive director of I-MAK, a non-profit building a more just and equitable medicines system. She has spent nearly two decades exposing structural inequities affecting access to medicines and vaccines across the Global South and in the United States. That includes advocating for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines across the globe to ensuring that the Biden-Harris administration is prioritizing equity in the Patent and Trademark Office.
To improve equity in the patent system, she and I-MAK have developed a new tool called Participatory Changemaking that will provide an assessment of the patent system and bring together stakeholders from across the spectrum, from patients to investors and policymakers, to drive sustainable, long-term change into what has long been an exclusionary process. Krishtel and I-MAK’s work is highlighted in the New York Times Editorial Board’s recent endorsement of patent reform. She is a MacArthur Fellow, TED speaker, Presidential Leadership Scholar, and Ashoka Fellow, and a frequent contributor to leading international and national news outlets on issues of domestic and global health equity.
For Speaking Engagements
Select Op-Eds and Profiles
- Devex: How a MacArthur ‘genius’ fights patents to ensure access to medicines
- USA Today: Big lie behind who gets to make COVID vaccines won’t protect us
- British Medical Journal: Suspend intellectual property rights for covid-19 vaccines
- Alliance Magazine: We need nothing short of an overhaul to our global health system