Health justice lawyer Priti Krishtel doesn't believe your ability to heal should depend on your ability to pay. Her mission is to reform the patent system that drug companies use to block competition.
We spoke to Priti about what it feels like to be a so-called"genius" MacArthur fellow, what inspired her to work as a health justice lawyer and her plans for the future — and the $800,000 MacArthur prize. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.I think it finally started to sink in today. Family are calling, friends are calling. It's really started to hit me that it's happened.
Originally, as far back as the writing of the Constitution, you were supposed to get a time-limited monopoly of 20 years if you invented something. In the last 40 years, the biggest corporations figured out that if they kept filing patents [with small changes to the drug such as dose requirements], they could stack them up [extending the patent protection], to the point where it blocks out all competition.
What has the COVID-19 pandemic taught us about the way companies are profiting off of life-saving medicine? The act of standing up against these corporations is in some ways an act of rebellion. Have you always been a rebellious person? Is that part of the reason why you're doing the work that you do?
I am a mom. So most of my free time goes to hanging out with my 4-year-old, which is the joy of my life, and my husband. I also have a group of friends who I call my book club, but I don't actually read the book most of the time. They are my big idea group. We talk about everything and so they have just really been my joy outside of work in recent years.
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