Charles Clift
Vice chair
Infectious Diseases
Medicines Patent pool
India
Biography
Trained as an economist at Cambridge and Sussex Universities, Charles Clift undertook a wide range of roles during his career as an economist with the UK Department for International Development (DFID). He lived and worked in Kenya, India, the Caribbean and Geneva. From 2001 to 2002, he acted as Head of the Secretariat of the U.K. Commission on Intellectual Property Rights. From 2004 to 2006, he was employed in a similar capacity by the World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health which recommended that further work be done to evaluate the feasibility of patent pools to promote innovation and improve access. He was also the principal consultant in drafting the report of the WHO’s Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination. In recent years, Dr Clift has worked extensively with other donors, the pharmaceutical industry (both brand-name and generic), governments and civil society on ways to improve access to medicines in developing countries, including through the use of innovative intellectual property mechanisms.
Research Interest
Trained as an economist at Cambridge and Sussex Universities, Charles Clift undertook a wide range of roles during his career as an economist with the UK Department for International Development (DFID). He lived and worked in Kenya, India, the Caribbean and Geneva. From 2001 to 2002, he acted as Head of the Secretariat of the U.K. Commission on Intellectual Property Rights. From 2004 to 2006, he was employed in a similar capacity by the World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health which recommended that further work be done to evaluate the feasibility of patent pools to promote innovation and improve access. He was also the principal consultant in drafting the report of the WHO’s Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination. In recent years, Dr Clift has worked extensively with other donors, the pharmaceutical industry (both brand-name and generic), governments and civil society on ways to improve access to medicines in developing countries, including through the use of innovative intellectual property mechanisms.
