Business and biotechnology
Benchmarking AIDS: evaluating pharmaceutical company responses to the public health crisis in emerging markets
Business and HIV: comparing actual pharmaceuticals responses against industry best practices
Authors:
; ICCR
Publisher:
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility , 2006
With regards to responses to HIV/AIDS, but also TB and malaria, for example, pharmaceutical companies are facing two particularly important issues with regards to epidemic diseases and development. First of all there is the failure to develop new medicines which address diseases of poverty and also poor patients’ lack of access to existing medicines. This report measures how effectively companies are addressing these two fundamental problems by comparing actual pharmaceuticals responses against industry best practices.
Findings include:
- There is little market-driven research and development on diseases of poverty, and the available drugs are not universally accessible, are unaffordable to the most affected populations, or are only available in inconvenient or ineffective formulas; to engage in best practice companies should devote more of its research activities towards these issues
- Currently there are almost no child-friendly formulations for treating HIV/AIDS (i.e smaller tablets easier to swallow), and those available tend to be more expensive that adult formulations; a best practice approach should involve produce more child-friendly formulations at lower prices
- Voluntary licensing is often not practised (particularly not in the USA), and often carries many restrictions and do not take technology transfer into account; a best practice would mean that companies do not have patents in countries that are major generic exporters and no patents in least developed countries.
The report concludes that companies whose practices approach best practices are more effectively managing these risks than their peers.
Note: only the executive summary of the report is available freely online
