Visiting Distinguished Professor of Law
B.A., Simmons College
J.D., New England School of Law
MPH, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
E-mail Address:
mdforzley@widener.eduPhone: 302.477.2704
Michele and her staff provide legal and consulting services on global public health matters. Typical projects involve developing NGO initiatives on trade and health, assessments to remove barriers to access to health products, conceptualizing solutions to counterfeit medical products and corruption in the health and pharmaceutical sectors, designing and improving pooled procurement mechanisms, solving trade and health policy issues such as determining patent and registration status and requirements, drafting health, drug, and health finance legislation, and building law into governance mechanisms for health systems.
Michele is the public health representative to US Department of Commerce and US Trade Representative on Industry Trade Advisory Committee 15 (ITAC) on intellectual property representing the Global Health Council. She has twice served as a delegate to the World Health Assembly and since 2007 has been a Visiting Distinguished Professor at the Health Law Institute at Widener School of Law. She teaches global public health and the law and directs the global health law internship certificate program. Forzley frequently shares her knowledge on protecting public health with governance and rule of law principles. In 2009 she has presented this topic to WHO headquarters staff, at the World Federation of Public Health Associations Tri-Annual Meeting in Istanbul and to the DC Fellows and USAID.
Current projects take advantage of new social networking and on-line technologies to share Michele’s content expertise in governance and rule of law for the creation of primer plus™ on-line training tools for public health practitioners. Productions are on the topics of the use of criminal law to protect public health, what public health needs to know about trade, rule of law and health, and the application of business skills in procurement. Recent consulting projects include assessing the Turkmenistan procurement law and the Albanian public and private pharmaceutical supply system for corruption and recommending policy, procedural, and regulatory changes. She has worked in many countries including Morocco, the Philippines, and Nigeria and globally for clients including the World Bank, World Health Organization, the PEPFAR Supply Chain Management System, Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and TB, PSP-One (a USAID project to expand private sector health services), St. Jude Hospital, UNDP, and ASEAN.
In addition to her public service on ITAC 15 Michele also is a member of the US Department of Commerce Counterfeit Medical Products Task Force. She was a public health advisor and legislative aide on health in the Maryland General Assembly, at the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of Global Health, and the Maryland Department on Aging. At DHHS she tracked revisions to the WHO International Health Regulations and the formulation of the US position on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and TB. As Chair of the American Bar Association International Health Law Committee she pioneered electronic news letters and programming on emerging legal issues at the intersection of law and public health such as TRIPS and access to AIDS medicines.
Michele’s many career accomplishments began with the establishment of a law office in 1979. She managed the law practice as international general corporate counsel for clients engaged in international business transactions and UN Missions and their government relations. Among many assignments she was US representative to Mundocom a subsidiary of Publicis, foreign direct investment advisor to Fribourg, Switzerland, international marketing consultant to numerous companies “going global”, and advised state economic development departments. During the 1980s she was a US Trustee in Bankruptcy in New York and separately represented creditors and debtors including the establishment of the Doha Bank mortgage business line.
Michele has authored numerous publications including a “Concept Paper on a Convention to Combat Counterfeit Drugs” for the World Health Organization 11th International Conference of Drug Regulatory Authorities, which became the basis for World Health Organization International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force (IMPACT). She has written books and articles on international trade including Winning in Foreign Markets, which has been translated into German and Spanish.
Michele holds a JD from the New England School of Law and a BA from Simmons College. Always seeking to expand her knowledge base she earned a MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2003 and was selected to attend the WHO Technical Briefing on Medicines in 2008. She has twice studied public and private international law at The Hague Academy of International Law.