Prof.Peter Mugyenyi, the founder of Joint Clinical Research Centre

Prof. Peter Mugyenyi is the Vice Chancellor of Mabarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) and one of the world’s foremost specialists in the field of HIV/AIDS. He is a pediatrician by training.

After his narrow escape from being captured by Idi Amin’s secret police, he went into exile where he became a leading pediatrician in the UK. 

Although his reputation and expertise would allow him to find a position anywhere in the world, Prof. Mugyenyi later chose to return home (Uganda), where he feels his work has the most impact.

He is the founder and director of the Joint Clinical Research Centre (JCRC), Africa’s largest AIDS treatment and research center, and has come to be recognized as one of the leading HIV/AIDS researchers in the world.

In 2002, he ordered a shipment of low-cost generic ARVs from India, in direct defiance of Uganda’s patent laws, challenging the authorities to arrest him and refusing to leave the airport until the drugs were allowed into the country and guarantees were given that future shipments would also be cleared.

This action led virtually overnight to a tenfold increase in the number of people on ARVs in Uganda, and effectively ended the blockade of low-cost generic AIDS drugs into Africa (today almost all Africans on ARVs take generics, the great majority of which still come from India).

Prof. Mugyenyi also played a major consultative role in the formulation of the PEPFAR (‘President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief’) program, which was announced at the 2003 State of the Union address by President George W. Bush.  He was seated beside Laura Bush when the announcement was made, and President Bush made reference to him in the speech. PEPFAR has since put millions of Africans on lifesaving antiretroviral treatment, and is widely viewed as by far the single most positive legacy of George W. Bush’s two terms in the White House.

In September 2003, Dr. Mugyenyi was honored by the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care (IAPAC) and presented with the Hero in Medicine Award.

Peter Mugyenyi’s landmark 2008 book Genocide by Denial: How Profiteering from HIV/AIDS Killed Millions details how Western governments and drug companies callously oversaw the deaths of millions of Africans who would never have been able to afford their branded drugs. A follow-up to the earlier book, A Cure Too Far: The Struggle to End HIV/AIDS, was published in early 2013.

Peter Mugyenyi’s role in the battle for mass antiretroviral treatment in Africa is portrayed in the 2013 film Fire in the Blood, and Dr. Mugyenyi was invited by the producers to be guest of honor when the film debuted at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, USA. His appearance generated several standing ovations at Sundance.