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Pharmaceutical Companies and Global Lack of Access to Medicines: Strengthening Accountability under the Right to Health

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Anand Grover ,
Brian Citro ,
Mihir Mankad  and
Fiona Lander
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Extract

Approximately two billion people lack access to medicines globally. People living with HIV, cancer patients, those suffering from tuberculosis or malaria, and other populations in desperate need of life-saving medicines are increasingly unable to access existing preventative, curative, and life-prolonging treatments. In many cases, treatment may be unavailable or inaccessible for even some of the most common and readily treatable health concerns, such as hypertension. In the developing world, many of the factors that contribute to making the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized populations particularly susceptible to illness also operate to restrict their access to medicines. As a result of dramatic economic inequities and widespread poverty, it is not profitable for most originator pharmaceutical companies to develop new medicines for sale in developing markets or to lower the cost of existing drugs so that they are affordable for the majority of these populations.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , Summer 2012 , pp. 234 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2012

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