Access Catalyst
Co-Founder & Co-Executive Director, I-MAK
Oakland, CA
TOPICS
Health
Global Health
Policy
Design
Equity
Priti Krishtel is on a mission to bring life-saving medicines to the people. A health justice lawyer, Priti has spent nearly two decades exposing the structural inequities that make medicines and vaccines hard to access across the Global South and in the United States. She is the co-founder and co-executive director of I-MAK, an organization laser-focused on making medicine accessible for everyone – regardless of race, class, or gender.
Priti’s spoken up for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines across the globe. She is working to ensure the Biden-Harris administration makes equity part of the process in the Patent and Trademark Office, and the New York Times Editorial Board is taking notice. Priti is ready to nerd out about how to bring people into patent policy and has designed vital tools alongside her colleagues at I-MAK to bring together affected communities, investors, and policymakers to shift what has previously been a highly secretive process.
Priti is a MacArthur Fellow, TED speaker, Presidential Leadership Scholar, and Ashoka Fellow. A regular contributor to the news on issues of domestic and global health equity, Priti’s voice is clear, her moral compass is strong, and she’ll get you riled up about health equity.
I think a lot about who owns our right to heal. We live in a hierarchy of health. Some people get medicine first, and some don’t get it at all. Our ability to heal should not depend on our ability to pay or where we live.