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Released on 17 November by the Access to Medicine Foundation, the 2014 Access to Medicine (ATM) Index gives GSK a composite score of 3.3 out of a possible 5, following an in-depth evaluation of company activities in seven areas that are germane to enhancing access to medicine in developing countries.
GSK led the field in General access to medicine management with a score of 4.9 out of 5, in Research & Development where it scored 3.7, and scored high on Capability advancement in product development, Pricing, manufacturing & distribution and Product donations and philanthropy. The other areas assessed were Public policy and market influence, and Patents and licensing.
Announcing the release of the Index, the Netherlands headquartered Access to Medicine Foundation said GSK’s ranking at the top for the fourth time “is driven by robust performance across most areas, with several innovative practices.”
An independent initiative, the Access to Medicine Index ranks the world’s20 largest companies according to what they are doing for the millions of people in developing countries who do not have reliable access to medicine, highlighting policy and practices that either facilitate or hinder access. The Index has been published every two years since it was launched in 2008, and GSK has topped every edition to date.
Commenting on this achievement, Stuart Chapman, Managing Director of GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Sri Lanka, said: “GSK has made fundamental changes to its business model over the past seven years to ensure our medicines and vaccines are as available and affordable as possible while generating the returns we need to sustain our business and invest in future research. Improving access to medicine has been at the core of GSK’s overall strategy, recognising that while a lot has been achieved, there are still huge obstacles to reaching millions in need of medicine.”
He said GSK actively encourages more collaborative research into diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries, supports communities to strengthen their local health infrastructure and seeks to form partnerships with governments, NGOs and other companies to help amplify its efforts.
Among the company’s initiatives is a groundbreaking partnership with Save the Children to help save the lives of one million children over five years. The partnership includes developing child friendly medicines, training healthcare workers, and working together to increase access to medicines.
The 2014 Access to Medicine Index covers 20 companies and a broad range of products such as drugs, vaccines, diagnostic tests and other health-related technologies necessary for preventing, diagnosing and treating disease. This year the Index assessed more diseases, more countries and more enterprise-wide performance than ever before.
The 2014 Index also reveals how concentrated the relevant R&D is. Just five companies are developing 54% of the 327 products in the pipeline. All disease classes are being targeted, but more than half of the products under development target just five diseases.
One of the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical and vaccines companies GSK is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.GSK and its predecessors have been doing business in Sri Lanka since the late 1930s. GSK is the only pharmaceuticals company to tackle the three ‘priority’ diseases identified by the World Health Organization (WHO): HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
The methodology for the Access to Medicine Index was developed, and is continually refined, in consultation with multiple stakeholders including the World Health Organization (WHO), NGOs, governments, universities and institutional investors. The Index is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the UK Department for International Development.
