Anand Reddi
Anand Reddi is a global health policy expert, public health advocate and biopharma executive. Reddi works on health system strengthening initiatives with a focus on global health, implementation science, health financing and public health advocacy. A major focus of scholarship is global HIV scale-up including the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Since 2014, his focus has shifted to public-private global health partnerships to support access to essential medicines between by the biopharma private sector. He served on the board of directors of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation from 2009 to 2011 and was a founding member of the board of directors of the Bay Area Global Health Alliance.
Early life and education
Reddi pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a medical degree at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He was a Fulbright Scholar to KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, focusing on pediatric antiretroviral scale-up under the research mentorship of Hoosen Coovadia at the PEPFAR funded Sinikithemba HIV/AIDS clinic at McCord Zulu Hospital.Global Health
HIV implementation science
In the early 2000s it was uncertain if the provision of antiretroviral therapy in resource limited settings such as Southern Africa was feasible. Reddi's research documented that antiretroviral therapy is effective despite the challenges of a resource limited setting. These data were important in providing implementation experience for HIV scale-up initiatives advanced by PEPFAR and The Global Fund.U.S. HIV global health policy
In May 2009, the Obama administration's introduced a global health initiative that de-prioritized global HIV funding by prioritizing funding for maternal and child health programs. Ezekiel Emanuel, the initiative's architect and a special advisor to President Obama on health policy, argued that PEPFAR "is not the best use of international health funding" and "fails to address many of the developing world's most serious health issues." Reddi challenged Dr. Emanuel's position on PEPFAR by arguing maternal and child health need not be framed in opposition to PEPFAR. Reddi and Archbishop Desmond Tutu alongside other HIV advocates rebutted Emanuel's arguments that resulted in the restoration of $366 million for antiretroviral scale-up to Uganda in 2010. The opinion pieces in The Huffington Post, The New York Times and The Washington Post facilitated the movement to drive the Obama administrations' reversal on global HIV funding.HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis access
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation launched a campaign against the Food and Drug Administration review of Truvada for use as a HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis drug. Reddi resigned from the Board of Directors of AHF over their opposition to HIV PrEP writing: "AHF's media campaign against FDA review of PrEP is myopic, blinded by its determination to derail a promising new medication." The resulting advocacy was validated by the 2015 decision by the World Health Organization to recommended that people at substantial risk of HIV infection should be offered tenofovir disoproxil fumarate -based oral PrEP as an additional HIV prevention option.Reddi also advanced digital health tools to enhance patient access to PrEP including the development and launch of Gilead Sciences' PrEP Hub, a digital platform aimed at improving access and public health resources to HIV prevention.