Access to Medicine Index 2010 scheduled for publication in June

Haarlem, The Netherlands

The Access to Medicine Foundation announced today it will publish the 2010 Access to Medicine Index this June in Amsterdam. In addition, the Foundation has also publically released the 2010 methodology report which includes significant augmentations that aim to increase the robustness of the Index and bring it in line with current changes to global access to medicine priorities. The report, created by RiskMetrics Group, the research and analysis provider for the Index is currently available online.

The Access to Medicine Index is the only Index of its kind to rank the efforts of the industry’s largest pharmaceutical companies in providing global access to medicine. First published in 2008, the Index quickly garnered the interest of media, the pharmaceutical industry, NGO’s and institutional investors. During this time, the Foundation also welcomed new financial supporters including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the UK Department for International Development.

2 billion to go
Dutchman Wim Leereveld, chairman of the Access to Medicine Foundation, and his team have been working for over a year on methodology augmentations to the 2010 Access to Medicine Index. Leereveld: “We have gone through an extensive process of stakeholder feedback and have incorporated various enhancements put forward by both industry and other relevant stakeholders including increasing the total number of data points to just over one hundred. We look forward to presenting the new Index in Amsterdam this June to an audience of industry leaders, academics, ministers, NGO’s, investors and media. The theme of our presentation will be straightforward: 4.8 billion people have access to medicine; 2 billion to go.”

New dynamics
Wim Leereveld sees the financial support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Dutch and UK departments as a breakthrough. “The Index identifies and measures the efforts of drug companies that are doing the most to provide access to medicine creating new dynamics that include, most importantly, a level of transparency that aims to encourage pharmaceutical companies to share best practices and explore broader internal corporate responsibility policies. Companies don’t want to stay behind in the ranking. They want to move up if only because the opinions of NGO’s, investors, media, employees and governments matter to them. The grants of the Gates Foundation and the ministries underscore the recognition and effectiveness of the Index.”

Incentive
The Access to Medicine Index ranks the international pharmaceutical companies with regard to their efforts to improve global access to medicine. Bill Gates, in a TIME interview on creative capitalism, named the Index a new incentive for pharmaceutical companies to make medicine for neglected diseases and reach people in developing countries.

About Socially Responsible Investing
The Access to Medicine Index is at present supported by seventeen of the world’s leading institutional investors, together managing assets worth more than USD 2 trillion. By signing an Investor Statement, they have shown their support and have welcomed the Index and its efforts as a tool to help assess the long-term value of pharmaceutical companies.

About the Access to Medicine Foundation
The Access to Medicine Foundation is an international, nonprofit organization based in the Netherlands. The foundation publishes the Access to Medicine Index, the first Index of its kind to provide standardized information on pharmaceutical companies with regard to their efforts to improve global access to medicine. The Foundation is funded by several governmental and non-governmental organizations including Oxfam Novib, Cordaid, Icco, Hivos, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK Department of International Development (DFID) and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Foundation’s research partner is RiskMetrics Group (NYSE:RISK), a leading global provider of risk management and corporate governance products and services. Building on the 2009 acquisitions of Innovest Strategic Value Advisors and KLD Research & Analytics, RiskMetrics Group’s ESG Analytics business has established itself as the world’s leading provider of Environmental, Social and Governance data and analytics.