Dr Marie-Paule Kieny chairs the Governing Board of the Medicines Patent Pool Foundation (MPPF, Geneva, Switzerland). She is also the Chair of the Board of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi, Geneva, Switzerland), a member of the Board of Fondation Mérieux (France) and a Non-Executive Independent Director of bioMérieux (Lyon, France). She is a member of the scientific advisory group of several organizations working in the area of health. Until May 2022, she was Director of Research at Inserm (Paris, France), a position where she chaired the French Scientific Committee on COVID-19 vaccine.

Until June 2017, Dr Kieny served as the Assistant Director-General for Health Systems and Innovation at the World Health Organization. Key successes under her leadership roles at WHO include coordinating the WHO R&D efforts during the 2014-2016 West-African Ebola epidemic and conceptualizing the WHO R&D Blueprint, a global preparedness plan against emerging diseases’ epidemics. Before joining WHO, Dr. Kieny held top research positions in the public and private sectors in France. Dr. Kieny received her PhD in Microbiology (1980) from the University of Montpellier. She published over 350 articles and reviews, mainly in the areas of infectious diseases, immunology, vaccinology and health systems.