About us

The Foundation’s work focuses on bringing clarity, accountability and evidence-based research to how the industry affects access to medicines. We do this through rigorous data analysis, research insights and comparative tools such as rankings and report cards, including our flagship Access to Medicine Index. Alongside this, we engage with a broad network of stakeholders including investors, governments, and civil society to inform decision-making and support meaningful improvements in access to essential medicines.

Our Purpose

Today, essential medicines and basic healthcare products are out of reach for half of the world’s population, with the burden falling disproportionately on people in low- and middle-income countries. With healthcare companies and investors finding more lucrative markets elsewhere, these countries are too often relegated to the back of the queue, creating an unacceptable gap between the haves and the have-nots. 

Inequities span treatments for non-communicable diseases as well as interventions to combat infectious diseases. The consequences are devastating – not just for local populations, but also for global health security. 

Closing the healthcare equity gap depends on essential healthcare companies raising their game to ensure better access to medicine worldwide. In many sectors, just a few large firms hold the key to making change happen, whether through their market presence, dominance of manufacturing and distribution, or innovative power and intellectual property rights.  

Our purpose is to ensure that essential healthcare reaches the people who need it most. At the Foundation, we work tirelessly to mobilise these influential industry players to take action on opportunities to close gaps by providing rigorous data analysis, research insights and comparative tools that support informed decision-making. 

Our Story

The driving principle behind the creation of the Access to Medicine Foundation was the desire to make global healthcare inequity a thing of the past. Over the past two decades, the Foundation has grown into a powerhouse for change, providing rigorous research and insight to address urgent problems of healthcare access and affordability.  

In 2008, the first Access to Medicine Index was published. Drawing on the list of achievable actions, the Index ranked 20 of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies on their policies and practices for improving access to medicine. Published every two years since then, the report has grown into a trusted tool that lays out concrete steps for pharmaceutical companies to improve access to medicines worldwide.  

Under CEO Jayasree K. Iyer’s leadership, the Foundation has broadened the scope of its activities across wide-ranging sectors, adding dedicated programmes for Diabetes Care, Antimicrobial Resistance, Generic & Biosimilar Medicines and Medical Oxygen, as per our 2022-2026 Strategic Direction.  

Our Values 

As the Access to Medicine Foundation, our values define how we engage with our stakeholders and directly inform our strategy, guiding our decisions, partnerships and the standards we set in our work to advance equitable access to medicine.