Pharmaceutical News 2.0

March 21, 2007 – Innovest Strategic Value Advisors announced today the successful completion of the first phase of one of its most innovative current projects – the creation of a global Access to Medicine (ATM) Index of major pharmaceutical companies for institutional investors.

The new Index will rate and rank the pharmaceutical companies, based on their performance and positioning on ATM issues. The project is a logical extension of Innovest’s previous work creating indexes based on companies’ performance on other “sustainability” issues such as climate change, eco-efficiency and community investment. The Index was first proposed by the Access to Medicine Foundation in the Netherlands, and Innovest has been doing the research and analysis in collaboration with the Foundation and outside experts.

“For major pharmaceutical companies, the access to medicine issue represents one of the most difficult management challenges they face”, said Andy White, Innovest’s global Managing Director of research. “We fully expect that our institutional investor clients will pay close attention to this new index as a way to gain a fuller understanding of the overall quality of management of the various companies which are in - and not in - the new Index. We commend Wim Leereveld and his team at the Access to Medicine Foundation for taking the first steps to put ATM issues squarely on the investors’ agenda. In our experience, it is a very short step from that stage to a significantly raised awareness by company CEO’s and boards, and then to improved practices. This new ATM index could become a real game-changer.”

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 30% of the world’s population – between 1.3 and 2.1 billion people lack regular access to medicine. In an effort to address the major global imbalance surrounding access to medicine (ATM), the Access to Medicine Foundation engaged Innovest to create a framework to evaluate global pharmaceutical companies on the issue.

Read more about the Access to Medicine Index.

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Fake prescription medicines are swamping developing nations with sometimes deadly consequences, a report by the UN drugs watchdog has said.

The International Narcotics Control Board report says up to 50% of the medicines in these markets are fake.

It also says abuse of prescription drugs will soon overtake that of illegal narcotics worldwide.

The board said governments had to enforce existing laws and bring in new ones on illegal internet drug sales.

Courier services, the general mail and local markets were other major means of counterfeit sales, it said.

Synthetic drugs

The report said the fakes market was “increasing rapidly”.

“[It] exposes patients to serious health risks by providing access to poorly or incorrectly labelled medicines that are ineffective, substandard and, in some cases, even lethal,” it said.

The board’s president, Philip Emafo, said: “Gains over the past years in international drug control may be seriously undermined by this ominous development if it remains unchecked.

“Instead of healing, [fake drugs] can take lives.”

The report said the UN and the World Health Organisation should help member states that do not have the resources to tackle the counterfeiters and traffickers.

The Vienna-based drugs watchdog also said prescription drug abuse had outstripped heroin, cocaine and Ecstasy in some parts of Europe, Africa and South Asia.

Only cannabis was more abused than prescription drugs in the US, it said.

Mr Emafo said exact figures on prescription abuse were hard to find as many countries were unaware which drugs were being abused.

Read the rest of this article from BBC on the UN’s warning about fake drugs.

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