GlaxoSmithKline tops table in effort to get drugs to developing countries

A biennial access to medicine index says that leading pharmaceutical companies are doing more to get drugs to people in developing countries. Photograph: Alamy

GlaxoSmithKline has once again topped a league table that measures the major pharmaceuticals companies efforts in enabling people in developing countries to get the drugs they need, while rivals Pfizer and Sanofi have slipped down the rankings.

The Netherlands-based non-profit Access to Medicine foundation said that an estimated 2 billion people around the world still do not have access to the medicines they need.

But, it added, the companies often called big pharma are increasingly working to improve the situation. They are not acting for altruistic reasons, but partly because they see a commercial opportunity, especially in middle-income countries such as China, South Africa and Brazil, which account for just under half the worlds population.

The latest biennial access to medicine index shows GSK came first for a fourth year although its score was lower than in 2012. It was closely followed by Danish diabetes specialist Novo Nordisk, American firm Johnson & Johnson and Switzerlands Novartis.

Twenty of the worlds largest drug companies are assessed on a range of measures, including their willingness to discount prices in poor countries, research on neglected tropical diseases, lobbying, patent policies, breaches of codes of conduct, corruption or bribery, transparency and conduct in clinical trials.

GSK was recently found guilty of bribery by a Chinese court and fined 3bn yuan (300m) by the government in Bejing, but the ranking does not take this into account. If it had, GSK would probably still have come first, said Wim Leereveld, who devised the index, owing to its activities in developing countries and GSK boss Sir Andrew Wittys overhaul of sales practices in the US. Witty said: There is more that we can do and are doing. This year, the index is tougher than ever. It challenges us to think harder about how we drive innovation and enable access to our products. This is a challenge that we are ready and willing to take on. We will continue to push ourselves to go further and faster to make sure our medicines and vaccines reach more people.

Pfizer fell to 16th place from 11th, while Frances Sanofi dropped to eighth place from third. Neither has provided evidence of significant improvement in access to medicine since 2012, and have been overtaken by other companies, the report said. The researchers found little evidence that Pfizers pricing strategies help the poorest people while the share of its research pipeline dedicated to diseases prevalent in developing countries is relatively small, and has shrunk since the 2012 index.

Pfizer said: Pfizer continues to pursue a social investment strategy and is undertaking work to find new mechanisms to improve access to medicines for low-income patients.The report also found that more than half the companies scored (11) are working on medicines tailored for children, with 7% of the overall research pipeline devoted to child-size drugs in areas such as tuberculosis and HIV/Aids.

Five companies are developing more than half of the products in the research pipeline for developing countries Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, GSK, AbbVie and Sanofi.