Jorge Bermudez is a medical doctor with a Master's Degree in Tropical Medicine and a PhD in Public Health. He is currently the Director of the National School of Public Heath (ENSP in Portuguese). He has been working since 1974 at ENSP which is a technical unit of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation. The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation is a very important Latin American institution involved with Science and Technology in Health, and is linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Health (MOH).

For the last 23 years Jorge Bermudez has been invited to lead several projects and activities related to Public Health issues such as the National Public Health Laboratories Network, the Drug Technology Institute (FARMANGUINHOS/FIOCRUZ), the Vital Brazil Institute, the Brazilian Association of state production manufacturers, and Deputy Secretary of the MOH.

In 1997, he launched an initiative to review the Essential Medicines List in Brazil, which gave rise to many other activities pertaining to pharmaceutical policies. The group of health professionals and researchers brought together at that moment evolved into the Nucleus for Pharmaceutical Policies (NAF/ENSP), also a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center for Pharmaceutical Policies since 1998. At NAF he has been involved with different studies and activities related to access to medicines in developing countries.

Besides Director of the National School of Public Health at present, he is the coordinator of NAF. The main objective at NAF is to produce technical and scientific knowledge that can be used by decision-makers and organized civil society to improve and expand access to care for developing countries. For this reason they have accepted the challenges of strongly supporting the Brazilian Ministry of Health actions, besides being a WHO Collaborating Centre and, more recently, hosting the UNAIDS Secretariat of the Financing Global Care Network on Access to Care for PLWHA.

Within this context, Jorge Bermudez has been part of the Brazilian Delegation to the recent World Health Assemblies, also participating in major international initiatives dealing with access to medicines, TRIPS and other trade agreements monitoring, access to care for PLWHA and pharmaceutical policies.