Ethan Guillén

Education: BA in political science from Yale University

Recent projects include: Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Personal interests include: Backcountry skiing, competitive rowing

Ethan Guillén is an activist and consulting professional with extensive experience in global health and non-profit management. As Executive Director of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, he worked to improve access to affordable medicines around the world. Ethan guided the organization to strategic wins that concretely improved policies on medicine affordability and led a team that devised metrics to measure the impact of these policies on medicines access. During his tenure, Ethan expanded UAEM’s global footprint while helping create an organizational affiliate structure that allowed the international UAEM network to function smoothly according to shared goals and vision.

Ethan was a part of the team that helped launch the Medicines Patent Pool, an organization that licenses medicine patents for generic production and use in developing countries. While at the MPP, he helped develop and execute strategy that led to broad political and pharmaceutical industry support. As a result, MPP was able to license all HIV medicines for low-cost production and sale in developing countries. Ethan led the effort to successfully expand the MPP’s mandate from a sole focus on HIV to include Hepatitis C medicines, demonstrating the broad need and usefulness of the model.

Most recently, he worked for Doctors Without Borders on policy matters related to the West African Ebola outbreak and innovative medical diagnostics. For five years, he led a team of interdisciplinary experts in partnership with the WHO to envision the future of diagnostics and testing priorities. The program ended with a WHO-endorsed vision for a new diagnostic paradigm including technical specifications to guide diagnostic manufacturers.

Ethan received his B.A. in political science from Yale University and spends his free time rowing competitively and backcountry skiing. As an activist he has fought for improved outbreak preparedness, Palestinian self-determination, and for appropriate care for people living with HIV as a member of ACT UP.