IFPMA Survey Of Pharmaceutical Sector's Contribution To Developing World Is Conservative, Experts Say

The London School of Economics (LSE) Health & Social Care Unit today issued a formal Validation Report on the Health Partnerships Survey undertaken last year by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA). The Health Partnerships Survey, unveiled in December 2005 by Dr. Daniel Vasella, IFPMA President and Chairman and CEO of Novartis, determined that, over the five years since the United Nations announced its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the 126 health partnerships created by the R&D pharmaceutical industry have provided enough health interventions to help up to 539 million people, or more than two-thirds the population of sub-Saharan Africa (1) .


In the process, the industry made available medicines, vaccines, equipment, health education and manpower worth $4.38 billion (2) , with the cost of donated medicines valued conservatively at their wholesale price.


The lead author of the report, Dr. Panos Kanavos, Lecturer in International Health Policy at the LSE, said "Having thoroughly reviewed the raw data and compared it with publicly available sources of information, our conclusion is that the IFPMA Survey is a conservative measure of the pharmaceutical industry's overall philanthropic effort to improve the health of people living in developing countries. Where contributions were difficult to value, they were excluded from the total, which therefore very probably underestimates the sector's combined contribution. For example, companies' investments in R&D into tropical diseases offering little or no commercial return was not counted."


He continued: "As far as we could discern, the Survey represents a first attempt by any industry to provide a global estimate of its role in the partnership to achieve the MDGs. It sets a standard to which other important industries might aspire, encouraging them to measure their commitment to the developing world."


The authors of the LSE report recommended that the IFPMA repeat the Survey on a regular basis, using a consistent methodology, to provide an up-to-date record of the industry's overall commitment to the MDGs. They also felt that the decision to exclude expenditure on R&D in neglected diseases disproportionately affecting developing countries helped to underestimate the overall industry contribution and that measurement of this R&D investment would be a welcome addition to future surveys.


(1) The survey measured the number of people potentially receiving help by counting (a) the delivery of sufficient medicine to cure one person of one disease, (b) the provision of a course of therapy sufficient to manage one disorder in one person for one year, (c) provision of sufficient vaccine to immunize one person against one disease for at least one year, or (d) delivery of a proven program of health education to one person. These metrics were used because, while companies know the number of doses they make available, they have a less precise view of the number of patients actually treated The total number of people receiving health assistance may be reduced if individuals are treated more than once by the same program or receive help from more than one program, but this is very difficult to quantify.


(2) This valuation includes cash contributions, donated drugs, diagnostics and vaccines valued at wholesale price, and other in-kind contributions such as direct provision of health care services, education and training, and infrastructure development and support, for developing countries only (the 153 countries classified as low or medium income by the World Bank). It excludes the value foregone of drugs sold at preferential prices and assistance provided via long-term health development programs in other countries, as well as all industry emergency relief contributions to natural disasters in developed countries, as with Hurricane Katrina, or in developing countries, as with the Indian Ocean tsunami. It also excludes spending on R&D into neglected diseases, disproportionately affecting people in developing countries.


International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA)

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