Participants

Dr Alphonse Crespo, Medicine and Liberty

Alphonse Crespo is a Swiss orthopedic surgeon who is the founder and executive director of Medicine and Liberty, an independent medical network established in 2007. Dr Crespo is also the director of research at Institut Constant de Rebecque, a classical liberal think tank, and provides assistance to Med-Consilium, an accident insurance consulting and assessment independent service.

Dr Crespo is the author of Esculape Foudroyé and of numerous essays and articles, such as Black Market Medicine an Ethical alternative to State Control, Outlawing Medicine or The End of Welfare and its effect on the Poor.

Gustavo de Freitas Morais, Dannemann Siemsen and Getúlio Vargas Foundation

Gustavo de Freitas Morais is a partner at Dannemann Siemsen, a Brazilian intellectual property firm, and professor of law with the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo.

Mr Morais has published numerous articles including Legal Aspects Involving Protection of Plants in Brazil, “Access to biodiversity: how hyper-regulation suffocated research in Brazil", “Trademarks evaluation" and “Patents - PCT and Convention filing in Brazil and other Latin America countries”.

Peter Pitts, Center for Medicine in the Public Interest

Peter Pitts is the president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and partner/director of Global Healthcare at Porter Novelli. Peter served as the associate commissioner for external relations at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and remains a Special Government Employee consultant to the FDA. Mr Pitts is a graduate of McGill University and has served as an adjunct professor at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs and Butler University.

Mr Pitts authored the book, Become Strategic or Die and edited both the Stockholm Network publication Coincidence or Crisis, which discussed global prescription medicine counterfeiting, and the new book, Physician Disempowerment: A Transatlantic Malaise.

Dr Meir Pugatch, Stockholm Network and University of Haifa

Meir Pugatch is director of research of the Stockholm Network and senior lecturer of the University of Haifa, as well as co-chair of the division of management and administration at the School of Public Health and adjunct research fellow of the Australian Global Studies Research Centre at the University of Western Australia.

Dr Pugatch is author and editor of an extensive number of publications including The Intellectual Property Debate: Perspectives from Law, Economics and Political Economy, "Measuring the Strength of National Pharmaceutical Intellectual Property Regimes: Creating a New Pharmaceutical IP Index", and "Political Economy of Intellectual Property Policy-Making: Theory and Practice".

Dr David Torstensson, Stockholm Network

David Torstensson is senior researcher of the Stockholm Network and works on a broad range of economic and social policy issues across all Stockholm Network research programmes. Dr Torstensson holds a DPhil in American politics and history from the University of Oxford, a first class BA in History from King`s College, London, and a Master of Studies degree from the University of Oxford in American History.

Dr Torstensson has authored the publications Explaining the Lisbon Barometer, Courting Confusion? Where is Canada’s Intellectual Property Policy Heading?, and Free Use or Fair Use? The Role of Internet Mediators in Protecting Intellectual Property Rights.