Latest news
The heads of 13 of the world's biggest drug companies, brought together by Bill Gates, have agreed to donate more medicines and, in a rare spirit of co-operation, to work together to find new ones in an attempt to end many neglected tropical diseases that kill and maim some of the poorest people on the planet.
On the 29th of March, the third National Reputation Conference will take place in Amsterdam. Leaders from a broad range of sectors, such as finance, healthcare, education and energy will take part in a dialogue on how their companies can make a shift from shareholder value to the so-called stakeholder value.
The end of the year is quickly drawing near, which provides the perfect opportunity to briefly look back on our activities over the past few months. At the same time, we look forward to 2012, when the Access to Medicine Index 2012 will be the focus of our attention.
Turkey will be the venue for the 3rd ICIUM Conference, which will take place from 14-18 November. The Index team will be attending, contributing data and insights from the Access to Medicine Index 2010 on pharmaceutical companies’ contribution to improving medicine use. In addition, the team hopes to gain new input and feedback through this forum, which is frequented by a globally diverse group of delegates. You can find a detailed overview of our activities at ICIUM on this webpage.
We are currently preparing our Access to Medicine Index 2012 and finalising the methodology. MSCI, leading player in ESG research and analysis, will again be our valued partner for the Index 2012. We are making steady progress and have set the first few important dates. Publication is planned for autumn 2012. A brief update of our progress is given below.
As of October 26, the strategic supervision of the Access to Medicine Foundation will be in the hands of a Supervisory Board, chaired by Sjoerd van Keulen. The international experience and expertise of the five board members will be crucial in supporting our increasingly global reach.
The Supervisory Board will consist of the following members:
Sjoerd van Keulen, Sophia Tickell, Knut Kjaer, Hans Hogerzeil and Wilfred Griekspoor.
The Access to Medicine Foundation team has recently been strengthened in the areas of Funding, Strategy, Operations and Research. Please join us in welcoming Ed, Conny, Samia and Niamh to our team!
The Access to Medicine Index has already proven to encourage influential pharmaceutical companies to do more for the two billion people in the world who currently lack access to medicine. The Access to Medical Devices Ranking could do the same for the developers and manufacturers of medical devices.
On 20 and 27 July, the Access to Medicine Index and Wim Leereveld, are featured in a Dutch documentary about access to medicine in developing countries. Gideon Levy, an award-winning reporter, investigates how it is possible that two billion people lack access to medicine.
On 22 July the new Expert Review Committee (ERC) met for the first time in Haarlem, to debate the methodology of next year’s Index. The issues on the agenda were raised through stakeholder consultation, which has been ongoing in the first half of 2011.
