Padmashree Gehl Sampath

Padmashree Gehl Sampath is CEO of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation in Kigali, Rwanda.¹ Until recently, she was Director of the Global Access in Action Program at Harvard University (2021-present), having previously served as Senior Advisor (2017-2021) and Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center.  A respected thought leader in development studies and global health, she focuses on trade, technology, and industrialization.²  A pioneer in new paradigms for international technology transactions for global public goods, particularly pharmaceuticals, her two decades of work examine access to technology and know-how and its impact on local production and drug availability.³

She served as Senior Scientific Advisor to the Africa CDC, leading work on a market shaping and pooled procurement system, and chairs the WHO’s CTAP Technical Advisory Group. She has advised GIZ and BMZ on African vaccine production and the African Development Bank on the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation.⁴  She is an Honorary Professor at the University of Rwanda, a Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, and a member of the AfCFTA Trade and Industrial Development Advisory Council.⁵

Previously, she worked at the UN (2009-2016) on technology, innovation, and development, and was an Adjunct Professor at the University of Denmark (2016-2021).⁶  In 2005, she was an expert on the WHO’s Commission on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Health. She is a Professorial Fellow at UNU-MERIT and on the editorial board of the Journal of Competition and Change. Author of six books, her research has appeared in various publications, and she has two more books forthcoming.