Access to Medicines: index praises GSK, as Sanofi-Aventis argues commercial case

The issue of drug access in the less-developed parts of the world has provoked some discussion, especially in the run-up to the early-July G8 Summit in Japan. The Netherlands-based Access to Medicines Foundation has launched an index to encourage "socially responsible" financial institutions to invest in drugmakers on the basis of their compliance with certain criteria. Meanwhile, France's drug major, Sanofi-Aventis, has also provided the Marketletter with details of its own program to make pharmaceutical products more readily available in poorer countries.

The two biggest factors in determining a pharmaceutical company's score in the Access to Medicines Index each carried 20% of the overall tally. These were accountability combined with ethical policies and research into neglected diseases. Equitable pricing and the quality of manufacturing processes as well as of the finished product were each worth 15%. Licensing and patent policies, public policy advocacy, drug donations and philanthropy between them were worth 30% of the total.

Wim Leereveld, the Index' founder, said that social pressure will "prompt laggards into action." He claimed that cultural differences between Europe and the USA led to better scores for firms based in the former region.