Life-saving quality medicines: PQP evaluates and assures the quality of medicines bought by international aid programmes and countries with weak pharmaceutical regulation. In so doing, it ensures that the medicines are safe and effective: in other words, better able to save lives and attain public health results. Addressing the world’s health priorities: PQP was created to help advance quality treatment for the major pandemics: first for HIV/AIDS, and later for TB and malaria. Responding to the emerging priorities of today, it has expanded to cover reproductive health, some paediatric medicines, neglected tropical diseases and influenza. Training and transfer of knowledge: Most low income countries lack the capacity to produce, test and regulate quality medicines. PQP provides the additional service of boosting their in-country capacity through hands-on training of their regulators.

Unified world standard: PQP’s quality evaluation criteria are based on international pharmaceutical standards and a mix of the best practices applied by the world’s leading regulatory authorities. This promotes improved quality standards for medicines globally by providing a unified frame of reference and plays a critical role in harmonizing medicines quality within specific geographic and economic regions. One-stop shop: The products certified by PQP are listed on a public web site (www.who.int/prequal) as a single-source reference for purchasers of medicines destined for developing countries, or for the countries themselves. The PQP list guides most of the product choices of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, UNICEF, UNITAID and Médecins Sans Frontières.