Drug companies in Europe do more to make drugs available and affordable to the world’s poor countries than their counterparts in the United States or Japan, concludes a new type of assessment of company policies.
The Access to Medicines Index (www.atmindex.org), a Dutch foundation established by Wim Leereveld, a former marketing consultant to the drug industry, tries to strip away the public relations rhetoric to quantify and compare meaningful corporate contributions.
Top ranked is GlaxoSmithKline, the UK based company that has been involved in researching a range of new treatments for diseases in the developing world. It also offers “tiered” pricing to sell drugs at large discounts to low income countries.
Merck, which operates extensive drug donation programmes and is involved in researching treatments and vaccines for HIV, among other diseases, was the only US company ranked among the top seven.
Mr Leereveld believes that this transatlantic divide may result from the European companies’ more extensive and historical roots in the developing world and a broader approach to corporate responsibility that extends beyond US style philanthropy.
In terms of sales and market capitalisation at least one Japanese business, Takeda, might have been included among the top 20, but the index concluded that there was little point in listing it because the company made no measurable contribution.
The fruit of more than two years’ work, the index, which is funded by the government and charities in the Netherlands and the UK’s Department for International Development, was devised by Innovest, a consultancy firm that measures companies’ environmental and social policies for investors.
A number of top fund managers have also supported the idea behind the index, although they stop short of saying they will redirect money on the basis of the scores.
The index uses eight main criteria to rank the companies on a five point scale devised in consultation with governments and non-governmental organisations. The criteria are equitable pricing, drug donations, research and development, licensing, involvement of senior management, lobbying, philanthropy, and capacity (drug manufacturing and distribution and capability advancement such as technology transfer). Overall, companies scored best on pricing and senior management involvement but not so well on lobbying and on efforts to stimulate technology transfer.
The drug industry was allowed to comment while the index was being drafted and suggested changes, including not unfairly penalising those companies that are less involved in neglected infections but that make an important contribution to easing the global disease burden by developing treatments for conditions such as diabetes. It also called for the inclusion of three manufacturers of generic drugs—Teva, Cipla, and Ranbaxy (which has since been acquired by Daiichi-Sankyo of Japan). These companies scored poorly, although this partly reflects their refusal to cooperate in providing data.
Jerry Norris, of the US based Hudson Institute, which produces its own Index on Global Philanthropy, questions whether the Access to Medicines Index sufficiently distinguishes the clinical value of drugs from their monetary value or whether it can assess how far a company’s donations may encourage contributions from others.
Whatever the faults of the index, the data provide a first attempt to rank companies’ activities in a way that they can be meaningfully compared, which may help stimulate further progress. The aim is to repeat the exercise annually, if sufficient funding can be found.