The Access to Medicine Foundation is an international not-for-profit organisation dedicated to improving access to medicines to societies in need. Based in Haarlem, The Netherlands, the foundation publishes the Access to Medicine Index, the first index of its kind to rank pharmaceutical companies with respect to their efforts to enhance global access to medicines.

Access to medicines remains a very serious concern for billions of people suffering from disease and is still a primary challenge for the global health system. Reflecting the key role of the pharmaceutical industry in addressing the challenges of access, it is essential that the Access to Medicine Index’s approach to monitoring and evaluating the performance of the industry in this work is robust, balanced and comprehensive.

Optimized Methodology

As such, the Index team, based on consultations with the industry and various civil society organizations, and in conjunction with the Expert Review Committee and Technical Subcommittees, has undertaken a review of the methodology for Index 2012. This multi-stakeholder consultative approach took place during 2011. It has enabled the Index team to make refinements that strive to capture the changing realities of the global health community, including the pharmaceutical industry and, most importantly, those in less affluent nations who suffer from diseases for which access to medicines is often problematic...