Medicines We Can Trust Campaign Rallies Mekong Governments and Leaders to Improve Access to Quality Medicines
PHNOM PENH, 7 November 2018 – Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and other leaders from the Greater Mekong Subregion joined hands as part of a global campaign to improve access to quality medicines. The announcement was made during the Phnom Penh Regional Conference on the fight against falsified, substandard and unlicensed medical products.
The Medicines We Can Trust campaign is a global movement advocating for access to quality medicines and stronger health regulatory systems.
“The world wastes approximately US$30 billion each year on poor-quality medicines,” said Dr. Phillip Nguyen, Director, International Regulatory Policy & Programs, USP, a committed partner of the campaign. “Substandard and falsified medicines give patients false hope, erodes trust in health systems and fail to protect people from the devastating impact of diseases. Despite the scale of this issue, it is rarely prioritized – or even discussed outside of expert circles. The Medicines We Can Trust initiative is a multi-stakeholder effort focused on raising awareness on the impact of poor-quality medicines on peoples’ lives.”
At least one in 10 medicines are copied illegally with substandard manufacturing practices in low- and middle-income countries, including many countries in Asia Pacific. In Southeast Asia alone, an estimated 30% of antimalarial drugs are of poor-quality contributing to an alarming rise in antimalarial resistance across the region. Anti malarials is just one of a broader range of drugs that are becoming in-effective; antimicrobial resistance already accounts for 700,000 deaths every year, could cause up to 10 million deaths per year, and cost US$100 trillion by 2050.
“In the Greater Mekong Subregion, cross-border collaboration between countries will be critical to stop the ongoing distribution of poor-quality medicines through trade channels. Cambodia’s leadership in convening a regional and multisectoral meeting to address the issue is a great start,” said Ruby Shang, Chair of the Asia Pacific Leaders’ Malaria Alliance (APLMA) Board.
“Momentum is building. Apart from the Cambodia conference, positive leadership on this issue is evident through existing platforms like Medicine Quality & Global Health conference, and Regional Regulatory Partnership (RRP). This global campaign will further strengthen this leadership as it engages the regional community, including policymakers, civil society, regulators, health professionals, and researchers to act against substandard and falsified medicines.” added Dr. Sivong Sengaloundeth, Deputy Director General, Food and Drug Department, Ministry of Health, Lao PDR.
“Ensuring that all people can access quality medicines to effectively fight infectious diseases is crucial. Unitaid is proud to support the campaign against poor-quality medicines to tackle the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance,” said Dr. Philippe Duneton, Unitaid’s Deputy Executive Director. “These superbugs are threatening the global health community’s gains against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria and jeopardizing the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.” Unitaid invests half of its portfolio – US$ 500 million – in innovative grants to combat drug resistance and is a committed partner of the campaign.
Visit Medicines We Can Trust to get involved and learn more. #MedsWeCanTrust
Lancet commentary highlights Unitaid interest in long-acting technologies to treat diseases
GENEVA – Unitaid is working with partners and stakeholders to explore introduction of long -acting (LA) technologies – such as injectable drugs, patches and implants – to treat infectious diseases in low and middle-income counties (LMICs), according to a commentary co-authored by Unitaid’s Executive Director Lelio Marmora and published in the Lancet.
“To avoid the pitfalls of the past, when new medicines were introduced first in high-income countries and only much later in LMICs, we need to be thinking ahead about LA technologies for infectious diseases,” said the article, co-authored by Carmen Perez Casas, Ian Grubb, Craig McClure and Marmora.
A global technical consultation will be held in Geneva on 1-2 November to consider the science and market landscapes for LA technologies.
Scientific and technological advances may make it possible over the next decade for children to be protected from malaria for an entire season with a single injection of chemoprophylaxis, for example, or for women to protect themselves from being infected with HIV by taking capsules once a fortnight that slowly release antiretroviral medicine.
The article cited Cabotegravir, a new antiretroviral drug, that is being studied as a singular intramuscular injection every eight weeks for pre-exposure prophylaxis, as well as LA formulations in malaria that are being explored for chemoprophylaxis and vector control.
Apart from injectable drugs, once-weekly gastric resident capsules, various types of patches, implants and vaginal rings were also being developed to deliver long-acting medicines, the article said.
Long-acting technologies are likely to pose big challenges in low and middle-income countries and will require stronger health systems in managing supply chains and medical waste.
Difficult intellectual property and generic manufacturing issues will also have to be sorted out before the completion of clinical trials, if LA products are to be sourced from generic suppliers, as is the case with more than 90 percent of antiretroviral drugs supplied by funders such as the Global Fund and the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the article added.
“Above all, LA approaches in addition to being safe must be designed upfront for simplicity to minimize burden and increase convenience for patients, providers and health services.” Please click here to read the commentary in full.
Global health organizations commit to new ways of working together for greater impact
Berlin – Eleven heads of the world’s leading health and development organizations today signed a landmark commitment to find new ways of working together to accelerate progress towards achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Coordinated by the World Health Organization, the initiative unites the work of 11 organizations, with others set to join in the next phase.
The commitment follows a request from Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of Ghana, and Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway, with support from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, to develop a global action plan to define how global actors can better collaborate to accelerate progress towards the health-related targets of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.
“Healthy people are essential for sustainable development – to ending poverty, promoting peaceful and inclusive societies and protecting the environment. However, despite great strides made against many of the leading causes of death and disease, we must redouble our efforts or we will not reach several of the health-related targets,” the organizations announced today at the World Health Summit in Berlin. “The Global Action Plan represents an historic commitment to new ways of working together to accelerate progress toward meeting the 2030 goals. We are committed to redefine how our organizations work together to deliver more effective and efficient support to countries and to achieve better health and well-being for all people.”
The group has agreed to develop new ways of working together to maximize resources and measure progress in a more transparent and engaging way. The first phase of the plan’s development is organized under three strategic approaches: align, accelerate and account.
Align: The organizations have committed to coordinate programmatic, financing and operational processes to increase collective efficiency and impact on a number of shared priorities such as gender equality and reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health.
Accelerate: They have agreed to develop common approaches and coordinate action in areas of work that have the potential to increase the pace of progress in global health. The initial set of seven “accelerators” include community and civil society engagement, research and development, data and sustainable financing.
Account: To improve transparency and accountability to countries and development partners, the health organizations are breaking new ground by setting common milestones for nearly 50 health-related targets across 14 Sustainable Development Goals. These milestones will provide a critical checkpoint and common reference to determine where the world stands in 2023 and whether it is on track to reach the 2030 goals.
The Global Action Plan will also enhance collective action and leverage funds to address gender inequalities that act as barriers to accessing health, and to improve comprehensive quality health care for women and girls, including sexual and reproductive health services.
The organizations that have already signed up to the Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All are: Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Global Financing Facility, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, Unitaid, UN Women, the World Bank and WHO. The World Food Programme has committed to join the plan in the coming months.
The final plan will be delivered in September 2019 at the United Nations General Assembly.
For more information, www.who.int/sdg/global-action-plan
Media enquiries
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance : Frédérique Tissandier; +41 79 300 8253; ftissandier@gavi.org
Global Fund: Ibon Villelabeitia; +41 79 292 5426; ibbon.Villelabeitia@theglobalfund.org
UNAIDS: Sophie Barton-Knott; +41 79 514 6896; bartonknotts@unaids.org
UNDP: Adam Cathro; +19179159725; adam.cathro@undp.org
UNFPA: Omar Gharzeddine; +1 212 297 5028; gharzeddine@unfpa.org
UNICEF: Sabrina Sidhu; +1 917 476 1537; ssidhu@unicef.org
Unitaid: Andrew Hurst, +41795616807; hursta@unitaid.who.int
UN Women: Maria Sanchez Aponte; +16467814507; maria.sanchez@unwomen.org
World Bank Group: Maya Brahmam; +1 202 361 2594; mbrahmam@worldbankgroup.org
WHO: Christian Lindmeier; +4179 500 6552; lindmeierch@who.int
Making lifesaving medicines affordable
Building country capacity to support access to medicines
Affordable medicines for developing countries
Unitaid expands its work on access to medicines
Unitaid is pleased to announce that its Executive Board has approved three new projects that aim to safeguard public health by increasing access to affordable medicines.
The project implementers, selected through a competitive process, are International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), South Centre, and Third World Network.
The investments will help expand access to more affordable medicines, a fundamental aspect of the right to health and essential to reaching the UN’s sustainable development goals on health.
The grants stem from a 2017 Unitaid call for proposals to help countries use flexibilities and provisions under global intellectual property agreements and laws to improve access to affordable medicines in order to safeguard public health.
Unitaid will invest a total of US$ 22 million in the three projects, in addition to its ongoing support to the Medicines Patent Pool.