Having written critically about a decision made by a philanthropic organization to reject a donation of vaccines by Pfizer, Inc., I am grateful for a new report which ranks research-based pharmaceutical companies on a number of measurements of how they make medicines available to patients in low-income countries.
Jointly funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and British and Dutch taxpayers, the Access to Medicine Index ranks 20 large drug makers: "The 2016 Index used a framework of 83 metrics to measure company performances relating to 51 high-burden diseases in 107 countries."
One measure where there has been little recent progress is affordability, as measured by pricing arrangements that take into account different abilities to pay in different countries. I find this odd, because any drug company maximizes profits by engaging in fine price differentiation. This means charging a low price in low-income countries, rather than shunning the market.
Jointly funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and British and Dutch taxpayers, the Access to Medicine Index ranks 20 large drug makers: "The 2016 Index used a framework of 83 metrics to measure company performances relating to 51 high-burden diseases in 107 countries."
One measure where there has been little recent progress is affordability, as measured by pricing arrangements that take into account different abilities to pay in different countries. I find this odd, because any drug company maximizes profits by engaging in fine price differentiation. This means charging a low price in low-income countries, rather than shunning the market.
The only reason for a drug marker not to
engage in this practice is concern that the drugs will be diverted to
higher-income countries, cannibalizing profits. Thus, the drug maker has to be
confident the distribution system in the low-income country will not suffer
“leakage.”
The report also analyzes research &
development into diseases for which therapies are not commercially profitable.
It notes:
The majority (67%)
of the R&D projects for high-priority, low-incentive products are being
conducted in partnership, signalling that collaborative models are effective at
engaging companies in R&D aimed at addressing priority product gaps. Three quarters
of partnerships for high-priority, low-incentive products involve companies
partnering with public, non-governmental and/or non-profit organisations.
I find it very encouraging that
philanthropic enterprises (such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) are
entering these partnerships with for-profit drug makers. It is a far healthier
development than the old-fashioned approach of just beating up drug makers for
their greed.
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