Brian Kennedy and David Charles

Brian Kennedy serves as Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Patient Access, a international network of physicians and patients with the shared mission of promoting health policy that ensures patient access to appropriate clinical care and approved therapies. GAfPA accomplishes this mission through educating stakeholders on health policy issues and mobilizing them to be effective patient advocates. Mr. Kennedy also leads the related Alliance for Patient Access and Institute for Patient Access. Mr. Kennedy’s professional career spanned the practice of law, campaign politics, government relations and corporate public affairs consulting. Over the course of his career, Mr. Kennedy has served as the organizer, manager and/or a strategic consultant to over a dozen coalitions and associations. Mr. Kennedy received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Iowa State University and his J.D. from Drake University Law School.

Global AfPA is co-chaired by David Charles, M.D., who is the Chief Medical Officer of the Vanderbilt University Clinical Neurosciences Institute. Dr. Charles is a national leader in Movement Disorders research. He took leave from his practice in 1998 and spent a year on the staff of U.S. Senator Bill Frist, where he served as a health policy advisor. Following this experience in Washington, Dr. Charles conducted Parkinson’s disease research in France as a Fulbright Senior Scholar.