GSK goes global on access

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has created an overseas department dedicated to expanding access to medicine (ATM) in the world’s poorest countries.

As part of its commitment to ATM for diseases disproportionately affecting the world’s poorest, GSK has opened a Developing Countries and Market Access operating unit to integrate its businesses in the United Nations’ 49 Least Developed Countries into one group.

GSK says the group ‘will provide a dedicated focus on the strategic approaches needed to expand access to medicines for patients’ in countries including Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone.

GSK has recently been active in the access to medicine field, opening up its malaria patents and combining with Pfizer to provide cheap pneumonia medicine to the third world. In this year’s global ATM Index, GSK was deemed the best-performing company.

Andrew Witty, GSK’s chief executive, said the idea was to  make sure access to medicines ‘continues to become hardwired into the way we do our business’.