Francis Charles Storar Gore

Charles Gore is the Executive Director of the Medicines Patent Pool. He took up the post in July 2018 following a career in patient representation and public health advocacy. In his first three years he has advanced the work of the MPP in HIV and Hepatitis and is opening up further opportunities for the MPP model of voluntary licensing to be used for patented medicines on the World Health Organization (WHO) essential medicines list. Most recently he has overseen MPP’s role in COVID-19, where MPP is in discussions around the licensing of several promising therapeutics and is partnering with WHO in establishing mRNA vaccine technology transfers hubs in LMICs, the first to be in South Africa. Charles was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1995 and cirrhosis in 1998. In 2000, he set up The Hepatitis C Trust in the UK, that he ran for 18 years. In 2002, he was treated and cured of for his hepatitis C. He helped create the European Liver Patients Association and was its first President in 2004. In 2007, Charles organised a meeting of hepatitis patient organisations from around the world to agree on co-ordinated global action. From this emerged the decision to hold an annual World Hepatitis Day and to create a new NGO, The World Hepatitis Alliance, of which Charles was the President from 2007 until the end of 2017. As a result of advocacy by the Alliance and its members, WHO adopted successive viral hepatitis resolutions in 2010, 2014 and 2016, making World Hepatitis Day an official day, celebrated on 28 July every year, and endorsing the first Global Health Sector Strategy on viral hepatitis with the goal of eliminating hepatitis B and C by 2030. In addition to direct advocacy with over 50 Ministries of Health, Charles has led on advising countries on finding sustainable domestic financing for hepatitis programmes, including health system elements such as infection control and blood and injection safety. Charles also sits on a number of national and international advisory bodies, including the WHO Director-General’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Committee for Viral Hepatitis and has been a member of all the WHO guideline development groups on testing and treating viral hepatitis.