Edinburgh University is to help to make essential medicines more accessible to people in the developing world.

Around the world one third of people have no access to the medicines they need and ten million children die each year because they can not access to get cheap and effective medicines.

Edinburgh is one of the first universities in Britain to embrace a humanitarian agenda for the licensing of its medical research.

The aim of the new policy is to enable populations in the developing world to have medicines developed by university staff at-cost.

When licensing its medicines it will aim to increase the availability of affordable medicines in poorer countries.

The University has worked with students from the Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) campaign to develop the new initiative.

Mori Mansouri, UK national coordinator for UAEM, said in a statement: "We want to ensure every health-related innovation developed in campus laboratories is made available in the developing world at the lowest possible cost."

The initiative is also supported by the Gates Foundation, the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative and the Department for International Development.

Professor David Webb, school of clinical sciences and community health, said: "We are hopeful that by making our medicines as accessible as possible to those in greatest need, we will make a real difference to the millions of people who die from often-preventable diseases every year."