Building healthier societies for better global public health

For years, research-based pharmaceutical companies are making a significant contribution to tackling the global and complex problem of ill health in poor countries by devoting first considerable effort to research and development of new life-saving medicines. Key targets include HIV/AIDS and TB as well as other diseases prevalent in the developing countries, such as malaria, hepatitis B, meningitis and leprosy.

Improving the health of poorer populations in resource-poor countries presents society with a complex challenge that requires a far larger mobilization of resources, capacities and skills than either the public sector or any single industry can achieve on its own. Public-private partnerships have now become a distinctive feature of the healthcare landscape in low- and middle-income countries. Carrying the burden of some of the world's worst diseases whilst also facing severe shortages of all kinds, these countries need very broad health interventions, which experience has shown can only be delivered through multi-sector partnerships.

The IFPMA Health Partnerships Survey 2007, which measures the R&D pharmaceutical industry's contribution to help achieve the health-related UN Millennium Development Goals, found that in the period 2000-2006 the sector had collectively made available more than 1.3 billion health interventions to people in developing countries.

• In addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis a number of companies are working with UN agencies and other international institutions in what is called the Accelerating Access Initiative (AAI). A report from the AAI indicated that, by September 2006, more than 738,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries were receiving treatment with at least one antiretroviral supplied by the pharmaceutical industry. In the past two years, the total number of patients in developing countries receiving treatment from the AAI companies has more than doubled, with an increase of 104% since September 2004.
  
  
• Companies have also played a leading role in the establishment of the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), one of the first public-private partnerships focused on product-development for a disease prevalent in developing countries. Up to 500 million cases occur annually worldwide, resulting in more than 1 million deaths each year, of which 90% occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
  
  
• In the area of vaccines for children, the industry is an active partner in the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation (GAVI). The GAVI is boosting immunisation rates and reducing the gap in vaccine access among children in developing countries. Industry also makes a financial contribution to the operation of the GAVI secretariat.
  
  
• Through the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, industry works together with more than 30 partners around the world to accelerate the discovery and development of cost-effective new drugs for tuberculosis. The alliance is leading the development of the most comprehensive portfolio in history of TB drug candidates for the treatment and cure of tuberculosis, a disease that kills someone every twenty seconds.