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Access to medicines

What is GSK doing to improve access to medicines in developing countries?

Providing healthcare is one of the world's most pressing social challenges. The pharmaceutical industry can and should play a significant role. At GSK, increasing access to medicines is one of our four core business strategies.

What we are doing

We believe that governments have the primary responsibility for delivering healthcare, supported by intergovernmental agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). We look for innovative ways to work with these stakeholders to increase access without undermining our commercial business interests.

Researching new treatments
Continued research and development (R&D) is an essential component of improving healthcare. There are no effective treatments for a number of diseases, particularly those affecting developing countries. In other cases, treatments exist but have become less effective due to drug resistance.

We are currently conducting R&D into 10 diseases of particular relevance to the developing world: bacterial meningitis, chlamydia, dengue fever, hepatitis E, HIV/AIDS, leishmaniasis, malaria, pandemic flu, pneumococcal disease and TB.

We have been working on our candidate malaria vaccine for African children for over 20 years and have invested over $300 million in its development. Results published in October demonstrated for the first time that infants exposed to malaria transmission can be protected by a vaccine. If planned Phase III trials are successful our candidate malaria vaccine could be submitted for marketing approval in 2011.

Usually we cannot expect to make a profit from new treatments designed specifically for developing countries because there is no viable market. To ensure our activities are commercially sustainable we work with public bodies and foundations which help to fund research and may subsidise the eventual cost of medicines. In return GSK agrees to make the resulting products as affordable as possible for the world's poorest countries. Our tuberculosis research, conducted in partnership with the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, is one example.

Preferential pricing and voluntary licensing (VL)
We provide our HIV/AIDS and malaria medicines to the world's poorest countries at not-for-profit (nfp) prices. We have also granted eight voluntary licences across sub-Saharan Africa to enable local manufacturers to produce and sell generic versions of our anti-retrovirals (ARVs) to treat HIV/AIDS.
 
In 2007 our nfp prices for our ARVs included Combivir at $0.65 a day and Epivir at $0.19 a day. Further price reductions to $0.54 and $0.17 a day respectively were introduced in early 2008.

We make our vaccine portfolio available at preferential prices to developing countries, using a tiered pricing system. Prices are linked to gross national incomes (as defined by the World Bank) and can be as little as a tenth of those for developed countries.

Q. Why don't you just donate your AIDS medicines to the world's poorest?

A. Like many other stakeholders, including Oxfam and the WHO, we do not believe that donations of ARVs offer a solution to the AIDS pandemic. This is a widespread crisis which requires a long-term commitment to treatment. This commitment cannot be sustained through donations.

In some limited circumstances donations may be appropriate. For example, we have donated ARVs to support collaborative clinical trials to assess the appropriate use of ARVs in resource poor settings.

Q. Why doesn't GSK extend its not-for-profit prices to middle-income countries?

A. We are focusing our preferential prices on the countries where the need is greatest and resources are most limited. We can only continue to do this if relatively wealthier countries pay more.

Middle-income countries are not automatically eligible for the not-for-profit prices offered to Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and sub-Saharan Africa. However they can secure medicines at reduced prices through bilateral discussions with GSK.

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