Case Study: Medicines360 and Alliance Partners360

All pictures are Reuters pictures unless otherwise stated.

Medicines360 is a California nonprofit and Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization. Its mission is to improve access to women’s health products both domestically and globally. Medicines360 researches the health needs of women to identify gaps and barriers in healthcare access, and then it develops health products and forms partnerships to bring the products to market. Medicines360 reinvests all proceeds from its partnerships into advocacy, education and additional product and partnership development.

Medicines360 created a for profit subsidiary, Alliance Partners360, that works with a major pharmaceutical company to market and sell its women’s reproductive devices commercially, enabling the nonprofit to fulfill its mission. Whereas the non profit focuses on providing reliable and safe birth control devices to low-income women with a concentration on the developing world, the for-profit subsidiary commercializes the same products in the developed world. Through this hybrid partnership, Medicines360 is able to achieve greater scale and impact than would otherwise be possible.

For more information, please visit http://medicines360.org.


Next steps

Now that you have an overview of what structures may be most suitable for your social venture, you should seek legal advice to ensure the structure meets all your organization’s needs.

TrustLaw, the Thomson Reuters Foundation global pro bono legal program, connects social enterprises with leading law firms to provide free legal assistance on issues such as a structuring. In the US alone, TrustLaw supports over 175 social enterprises with free legal assistance.

Apply to join TrustLaw to request free legal advice for your social venture.