GlaxoSmithKline makes an innovative, responsible and sustainable contribution to improving healthcare in the developing world in four key areas. In addition to providing drugs and vaccines for current needs, we invest in R&D to meet future needs. The company also offers sustainable preferential pricing in the developing world and works in partnership with communities to foster effective healthcare.

This is against a background where access to the most basic healthcare services does not exist for millions of people in developing countries and where life-threatening diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS have created a healthcare crisis.

GlaxoSmithKline has an extensive portfolio of research projects and products for diseases of the developing world (DDW). We have created a dedicated DDW group within our R&D organisation which includes a facility in Tres Cantos, Spain, focused on drug discovery for malaria and TB.

This facility is only a part of our wider R&D activity into diseases that affect the developing world. Our effort to discover new HIV/AIDS therapies is led from Research Triangle Park in the USA, while GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals at Rixensart, Belgium, is focused on the discovery and development of vaccines, including those for malaria, TB and HIV. We also have extensive clinical trials programmes across the developing world.

Owing to the challenges of healthcare provision in some developing countries and the lack of a commercially-viable market for DDW treatments, public/private partnerships and initiatives are essential to direct resources effectively and deliver treatments to those who need them. As a result of one effective public/private partnership we have recently filed a licence application for a new anti-malarial product, Lapdap.