Priti Krishtel

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Biographies

Short (33 words)

Priti Krishtel is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow and an executive director of the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge, a nonprofit organization working to address structural inequities in how medicines are developed and distributed.

Long (180 words)

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.

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