Drug firms need to tackle affordability

Anne Gulland reports on the 2016 Access to Medicine Index for the BMJ, covering the ranking itself and the main findings from the Index report.

Drug companies need to do more to make their products affordable to patients in low and middle income countries, an investigation into drug firms’ access to medicines policies has found.

The Access to Medicines Index, which is published every two years and ranks companies according to how they make their products available to patients in poorer countries, found little progress in improving affordability.

There are currently 850 products on the market for the 51 most burdensome diseases in low and middle income countries. Companies are developing another 420, which includes more than 100 products that have entered the pipeline since 2014 (…)