Corporate Responsibility Report 2008

The future

Increasing access to medicines is a global challenge.

While encouraging progress has been made in some areas, significant problems remain and new issues are likely to emerge. For example:

The continued need for a significant scale-up of treatment for HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, in resource-poor settings
A potential global flu pandemic
The healthcare needs of poor people in middle-income countries
The growing impact of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes in poor and rich countries
The death of 2.5 million children each year from vaccine-preventable diseases

In 2009 we will implement programmes in a number of areas to help address these challenges:

Intellectual property – we will explore ways to be more flexible with our intellectual property rights as they relate to neglected diseases, including exploring the idea of patent pools. We believe that this could speed up the development of new medicines and will encourage other pharmaceutical companies to adopt a similar approach.

Update August 2009

On 24 March 2009 we launched an LDC Neglected Tropical Disease Patent Pool website which enables interested stakeholders to:

Access a list of GSK’s patent filings on small molecule pharmaceuticals for the treatment of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Organisations can apply for licences in areas where we are not developing treatments;
Request licences to research and develop a treatment for an NTD using a GSK patented technology for small molecules that we are not currently developing;
Get our help with problems arising in their research and development into small molecule therapeutics to treat NTDs in Least Developed Countries.

In July 2009, the US biotechnology group Alnylam became the first company to follow GSK and contribute some of its patents to the pool.

Pricing – we will improve transparency in our pricing policies and implement our new pricing policies in least developed countries and continue to evolve new approaches to increase affordability in middle-income countries

Update August 2009

On 1 April 2009 we implemented price reductions on our patented products in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Our commitment is that all GSK patented products in these countries will now cost less than 25 per cent of their price in the referenced developed countries.

We reduced prices for seven patented brands (110 individual product lines and formulations) by an average of 45 per cent. In some countries prices were not reduced immediately due to regulatory processes such as needing to obtain government authorisation, however the price reduction process was initiated. We also cut prices in some non-LDC markets in East Africa and Francophone West Africa to reduce the risk that products would be diverted from the LDCs and sold in these wealthier countries, thereby reducing their availability in the LDCs.

Research – we will evaluate opportunities to expand our Tres Cantos ‘diseases of the developing world’ research centre into a world-class, global centre of excellence. We will do this by encouraging partnerships with governments, NGOs and other pharmaceutical companies.

Update August 2009

We have appointed a leadership team and are working with partners to extend the capacity and scope of the Tres Cantos facility. We are creating a more open and collaborative way of working and providing the facilities and support network needed for visiting scientists to form drug discovery project teams with GSK scientists.

Healthcare services – we will seek to partner with governments and other stakeholders to help to strengthen healthcare infrastructure and services

Update August 2009

Through our reinvestment initiative GSK will support the governments of five LDCs in addressing priority healthcare challenges, to remove some of the barriers to quality healthcare and to strengthen health infrastructure. This will be achieved through targeted partnerships that will increase access to essential medicines and basic healthcare services. The work will begin before the end of 2009.

In four of the LDCs - one each from the GSK regions of East Africa, Southern Africa, Anglophone West Africa and Francophone West and Central Africa - we will be expanding our maternal and child health activities, with specific focus on children under five through the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness programme.

In one additional LDC we will be piloting a new Child Family Wellness (CFW) model. The CFW micro-franchising model involves building a network of micro pharmacies and clinics to improve access to essential medicines, basic healthcare and prevention services for children and families. The work will use business models that maintain standards, are readily scalable, and achieve economies of scale. GSK is currently working with an NGO, the HealthStore Foundation, which has implemented the model in Kenya, to run viability studies in at least two LDCs in East Africa. We will then select one country in which to implement the initiative.

In July 2009 we announced new commitments to fight HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a special focus on the care and treatment of children. They include £10 million seed funding to support a public private partnership for research and development of new HIV/AIDS medicines for children, a commitment to seek collaborations with other companies to develop fixed-dosed anti-retroviral combinations, and the creations of a £50m Positive Action for Children Fund.

We are working with the main industry associations on new initiatives to increase R&D and improve access. The first outcome of this activity was the announcement in January 2008 of a grant of $1 million by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) to the Special Programme for Research & Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), co-sponsored by UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank and the WHO. The grant will support TDR’s development of new medicines to combat diseases that disproportionately affect poor people living in developing countries.

Other activities include plans to establish a pilot industry consortium to focus on developing new targets (molecules that can prevent or interrupt disease progression) against diseases of the developing world.

Update August 2009

In April 2009 we announced our intention to combine the GSK and Pfizer HIV businesses to create a new company dedicated to the discovery and delivery of HIV treatments. By combining the businesses we will create a specialist unit that is more sustainable and broader in scope than either company’s individual business. The new company will particularly look to improve treatments and formulations for children living with HIV. We will continue to offer HIV medicines at not-for-profit prices in the world’s poorest countries, and to issue new voluntary licences to diversify production and expand capacity in these markets.

The new company will be responsible for delivering on the commitments announced by GSK in July 2009.