Access To Medicine Foundation : 2024 Index Report
The Access to Medicine Foundation released its 2024 Index Report, evaluating pharmaceutical companies’ efforts to enhance medicine access in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) despite ongoing challenges.
Highlights of the Access to Medicine Index Report 2024:
- LMICs, despite being home to 80% of the global population, account for only 43% of all clinical trials conducted worldwide.
- This limits the participation of LMIC populations in the development of new medicines and delays their access to innovative treatments.
- Voluntary licensing and technology transfers are concentrated in countries like Brazil, China, and India, leaving much of sub-Saharan Africa excluded, which limits the availability of medicines in many low-income regions.
- While some companies are adopting inclusive business models, over 61% of products assessed lack specific strategies for low-income countries.
- This underscores persistent inequities, as access efforts remain concentrated in upper-middle-income regions.
- Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly moving away from R&D for priority diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases, which disproportionately affect LMICs.
- The report highlighted the urgent need for pharmaceutical companies to enhance efforts and create transparent strategies for equitable access to medicines.
