Essential healthcare products, such as vaccines and medicines, remain unaffordable and unavailable in much of the world, particularly impacting 83 per cent of the world’s population living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Innovative pharmaceutical companies play a key role in improving the situation for billions across the world. For more than 15 years, the Access to Medicine Foundation has been assessing and tracking industry’s action to improve access to medicine in LMICs.
The Access to Medicine Index, published regularly since 2008 and now in its 8th edition, tracks progress, identifies best practices and demonstrates where action is urgently needed to improve access to medicine for some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.
Due to be released on 15 November, the latest edition takes a fresh look at how the world’s largest innovative pharmaceutical companies are performing on access to medicine.
In partnership with the Access to Medicine Foundation, Chatham House hosted an expert panel to review the 2022 index’s key findings and identify how lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic can be applied to other specific health areas.
Key questions to consider include:
- How has the COVID-19 pandemic shifted thinking around global health equity and the importance of improving access to medicine?
- What are the most important lessons learned from innovative pharmaceutical companies during the COVID-19 pandemic?
- How can pharmaceutical companies apply these key lessons to other disease areas?
- How can global health funders support the development of more sustainable approaches to the development and delivery of products to support the most vulnerable populations in LMICs?
- Where is progress most needed?
- How can pharmaceutical companies be further incentivized to fill gaps in access?
