Date
20 November 2018
Too few pharma companies prioritise access to medicines
Jessica Davis Plüss reports for swissinfo.ch on the finding from the 2018 Access to Medicine Index that progress in expanding access to medicines in poorer countries is concentrated among five pharmaceutical companies and on five diseases. She also highlights the performance of two Swiss companies in the ranking, Novartis and Roche.
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“Novartis was the top scorer in the category of general management, which includes aspects such as companies’ level of commitment and transparency. Where both Novartis and Roche performed weaker was on patents and licensing. Danny Edwards, the research lead for the index, explained that both Swiss companies are weaker in this analysis than other companies when it comes to sharing intellectual property (IP) with researchers in order to support R&D for low- and middle-income country needs.”