The Medicines Patent Pool is a voluntary mechanism.
The airplane patent holders were not left a choice
whether they'd license their patents or not.
They were forced to do so.
That is something that the Medicines Patent Pool cannot do.
It relies on the willingness of pharmaceutical companies
to license their patents and make them available
for others to use.
Today, Nelson Otwoma is healthy.
He has access to antiretroviral drugs.
His son will soon be 14 years old.
Nelson is a member of the expert advisory group
of the Medicines Patent Pool,
and he told me not so long ago,
"Ellen, we rely in Kenya and in many other countries
on the Medicines Patent Pool to make sure
that new medicines also become available to us,
that new medicines, without delay, become available to us."
And this is no longer fantasy.
Already, I'll give you an example.
In August of this year, the United States drug agency