What if the European Union’s medicines policy for Europeans could also improve access to medicines in developing countries? That is the question that Katrina Perehudoff asks in her recently awarded NWO Veni research project.

Perehudoff is the co-director of the Law Centre for Health and Life at the Amsterdam Law School and has a background in global health law and health sciences. Her research project uses law and empirics to study the EU’s responsibilities towards access to medicines in low and middle-income countries. The research ultimately aims to develop a normative and legal guide for the EU’s future action towards pharmaceuticals globally.

‘I want to unpack the EU’s legal and ethical responsibilities towards access to medicines in developing countries. Covid-19 revealed that there’s still no clear answer to this question. I also want to go beyond the law, to understand the actual impact of the EU’s pharmaceutical policy on making medicines available for patients globally.’

A Veni is an individual research grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to researchers who have recently obtained their PhDs. The Veni grant will provide Perehudoff with 280,000 euro for the project.

This project is based in the Amsterdam Law School and will be conducted in close collaboration with the Amsterdam Centre for European Law and Governance, the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies, and the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development, and with the implementing partner Medicines Law & Policy.