Pharma companies can still improve access to medicines, report shows

Top pharma companies are doing more to improve access to medicine in developing countries over the last two years, according to the 2014 Access to Medicine Index, released today.

The Access to Medicine Index ranks the world's leading drugmakers according to what they are doing to help secure reliable access to medicines in developing countries. It scores companies across seven areas of activity considered key to improving access to medicine, including product research and development, to what extent they facilitate or resist efforts to create generic versions of their drugs, how they approach pricing in developing countries, lobbying activities and marketing ethics.

UK pharma major GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) tops the index for the fourth time, driven by robust performance across most areas, with several innovative practices. Danish diabetes care giant Novo Nordisk (NOV: N) made the most progress, improving in five of the seven areas the Index focuses on, leaping from sixth to second place. Meanwhile French pharma major Sanofi (Euronext: SAN) and US pharma giant Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) fell down the ranking most significantly.