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Numerous policy-makers already work closely with the Access to Medicine Foundation to inform decisions and seek guidance on how best to address access to medicine challenges in low- and middle-income countries. Ensuring that global health leaders are equipped with the most relevant and important key findings and policy recommendations pertaining to access to medicine is a key element of the Foundation’s change-making strategy. 

These findings can be instrumental in providing the facts required to support evidence-based policy development. These policy-makers work with the Access to Medicine Foundation to make critical decisions on how to prioritise access barriers, determine how critical gaps should be addressed, allocate scarce resources for the most impactful projects, collaborate with other partners to enhance impact, and identify where policies can influence and shape pharma company actions.

We will not end the pandemic anywhere until we end it everywhere. The more the virus circulates, the more opportunities it has to mutate in ways that could make vaccines less effective. And the longer the pandemic drags on, the longer trade and business will be disrupted and the longer the global recovery will take. Ending the pandemic, restoring confidence and rebooting the global economy requires all of us, in the public and private sectors, pulling in the same direction. I thank the Access to Medicine Foundation for adding its voice to the chorus demanding vaccine equity.

The Access to Medicine Foundation works with governments, private foundations, multilateral organisations and non-governmental organisations

We support global health policy-makers making critical decisions through a variety of mechanisms, including:

  • Responding to bilateral requests for technical support

  • Hosting bilateral meetings to brief policy-makers on key access issues and related opportunities for action

  • Identifying key opportunities for companies and sharing them with those working directly with the industry to ensure a coordinated engagement approach and a cohesive voice when partners are speaking about increasing access within a particular company  

  • Delivering in person briefings of the Access to Medicine Index and the Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark both prior to the official launches and shortly thereafter to unpack key findings of the publications, discuss critical access issues, and suggest remedial policy recommendations 

  • Developing tailored briefings for high-level meetings between company executives and global health leaders

  • Creating evidence-informed data, analysis and advice for high-level roundtable discussions and negotiations

  • Integrating in-depth, disease-specific, issue-specific analyses within the Access to Medicine Index and the Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark based on topical priorities

  • Informing new approaches to responsible procurement and economic models to incentivise pharmaceutical action for neglected areas

  • Consulting key global health stakeholders and building their expertise into the methodologies of our research programmes

  • Matching the most interesting findings from our research programmes with priorities of different policy-makers 

  • Driving additional support for, and participation in, new and existing initiatives, including the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, CEPI, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, through both public and private sector engagement efforts 

The Access to Medicine Foundation’s research sheds light on issues that would otherwise remain underreported when it comes to the pharma industry and access to medicine and vaccines. This research informs priority setting and policy interventions based on the identified gaps.

How we inform broader policy conversations

  • Responding to global media requests to offer our expert opinion on critical access issues.

  • Supporting low- and middle-income country (LMIC) governments with evidence and advice to determine affordable procurement strategies and options. 

  • Monitoring real-time access issues and publishing thought pieces and viewpoints to provide expert advice and commentary and identify areas of action for key global health stakeholders on priority topics, including COVID-19, supply chains and stockouts, paediatric drug access and resistance issues, and maternal and neonatal health.

  • Organising workshops, roundtables and high-level events to convene a variety of stakeholders to discuss existing, and brainstorm new, respective contributions to resolve specific access issues, for example on priority policy issues such as access to oxygen. 

  • Participating in speaking engagements with diverse audiences at key global moments including the World Health Assembly, in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Health Summit in Berlin, Germany, The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and the United Nations General Assembly in New York, USA, as well as a variety of research summits, conferences and events, as part of our change-making strategy to encourage companies to act on key opportunities. 

This independent Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark is a huge step forward and shines a light on the pharmaceutical industry’s progress in tackling drug-resistant infections. It can help pave the way for a transparent learning culture where best practice is shared, progress celebrated, and gaps where further work is needed are identified.

Frequently Asked Questions

At the Access to Medicine Foundation, we focus on the development and deployment of the most critical medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for global health priorities. Policy-makers frequently ask the Access to Medicine Foundation’s team:

  • How to expedite the deployment of novel technologies by planning for access and stewardship in advance of marketing authorisation

  • How to assess and incentivise equitable pricing strategies that take the affordability of payers in LMICs into consideration

  • How to expedite the registration and availability in smaller markets

  • How to use voluntary licensing agreements to expand availability and reduce prices through generic manufacturing

  • How to remove barriers to local production in LMICs and capitalise on new opportunities

  • How to determine fair allocation of limited resources, including new vaccines and therapeutics for COVID-19

  • How to develop responsible procurement strategies to encourage positive company behaviour

  • How to prevent and address future pandemics.

  • How to develop innovative financing models for antibiotics

The pandemic has exposed the urgent need to expand the Access the Medicine Foundation’s proven model of engaging pharmaceutical companies to the oxygen industry. The big oxygen companies all need robust, long-term access to oxygen strategies, with performance indicators that can highlight best practices and areas where more attention is needed. The Foundation can help oxygen companies increase their impact during the pandemic, and long after the pandemic is over, by strengthening health systems to do a better job of treating tens of millions of hypoxemic patients each year.

The Access to Medicine Index is an effective tool for incentivising companies to develop new vaccines to fight emerging infectious diseases, including coronavirus. When companies receive credit in the Access to Medicine Index, they are encouraged to work collaboratively with CEPI and the public sector and thereby contribute to advancing society's fight against these deadly diseases.

Related reads:

BSAC: How can we ensure the pharma industry protects the supply of essential medicines during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond?

Ending the burden of HIV, malaria and TB in children

New products alone are not enough. Pharma can do more to halt COVID-19.

Shortages, stockouts and scarcity: the issues facing the security of antibiotic supply and the role for pharmaceutical companies

More quotes in support of our work:

While COVID19 is dominating health systems globally, many children are still on the frontlines of the ‘big three’ infectious diseases — HIV, malaria and TB — all of which still require urgent vaccine development to save lives. The Access to Medicine Foundation provides important research and analysis on key paediatric access and drug resistance issues and incentivises companies to take action.

This [Access to Vaccines] Index can help to identify product gaps as well as challenges on affordability, pricing policy transparency, research and development, and supply, to drive positive change and reach more people with life-saving vaccines.

Responsible procurement can be a force for the public good to improve access to health technologies that are quality-assured and manufactured in an environmentally and socially responsible way. Yet, it requires credible data and rigorous research to work well. The Access to Medicine Foundation provides exactly this type of data and research, and this is why it is a long-lasting partner of United Nations Sustainable Procurement in the Health Sector (SPHS) agencies and global health financing institutions working together towards purchasing health commodities, including medicines, in a sustainable way.

The work of the Access to Medicine Foundation is powerful because it shows how pharmaceutical companies can and should integrate access to medicine into their business strategies. This empowers local civil society organisations to advocate for more sustainable initiatives.

The pharmaceutical industry’s role in tackling drug-resistant infections extends beyond developing new treatments. The AMR Benchmark makes clear where companies are making commendable efforts to tackle this urgent global health problem – and it shows where further effort must now be focused. Wellcome is committed to working with industry and governments to answer the questions this report raises, by supporting new product development, and helping ensure antibiotics, old and new, are used appropriately and are available to all patients who need them.

Full access to sexual and reproductive health and rights is the bedrock of gender equality. Pharmaceutical companies can help to pave the way forward, and the Access to Medicine Foundation plays a central role in encouraging them to fill treatment gaps and increase access to medicine for girls and women across the world.