Medicines Sans Frontiers

Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines (www.accessmed-msf.org)

MSF argue that

"as a medical humanitarian organisation, it is fundamentally unacceptable that access to essential medicines is increasingly impossible, particularly for the most common global infectious diseases...

Since 1999, MSF has been campaigning internationally to find long-term, sustainable solutions to this crisis. The Campaign is pushing to lower the prices of existing medicines, to bring abandoned drugs back into production, to stimulate research and development for diseases that primarily affect the poor, and to overcome other barriers to access."

MSF acknowledge that there are many factors that influence Access, and so campaign and carry out advocacy work that offer solutions based around the following...

MSF is advocating for a combination of policies to lower drug prices on a sustainable basis; these strategies include encouraging generic competition, voluntary discounts on branded drugs, global procurement, and local production. MSF is also pushing for increased research into neglected diseases – such as tuberculosis, malaria, sleeping sickness, and leishmaniasis – through increased funding, investing in R&D capability in developing countries, and supporting alternative models for R&D. To address the issue of abandoned drugs, MSF is calling on companies and governments to find solutions to bring unprofitable but medically necessary drugs back into production. To make sure that all of these solutions are long-term and sustainable, MSF is supporting developing countries in implementing legislation that prioritises access to medicines, and is demanding at the international level that trade policies give the highest level of protection to public health.

This campaign has three 'pillars', each with their own objectives and strategies.

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