Biopharmaceutical companies operate in an environment of rising chronic disease, aging populations and an increasing demand from emerging markets. From an investor's point of view, a company's capacity to focus in long term value creation through investing in improving the access to medicine in low- and middle-income countries is a key factor for positively contribute to the development of emerging markets.
Providing access to high quality medicines is one of the biopharmaceutical industry’s main priorities. These companies have the capability to bring modern medicine to everyone, playing a major role in providing life-saving products for the two billion people that still lack access to them. Due to their expertise in the sector, they are able to strengthen supply chains, support development of healthcare infrastructures, and ensure widespread distribution of their products.
In the recent years drug spending in emerging markets has grown at a faster pace than in North America, Europe and Japan. Therefore, it has become business critical to build a reputation as a positive contributor to the development of emerging markets. The underlying purposes are not only ensuring that their products reach as wide a base of people as possible, but also that they do so efficiently with an eye toward long term value creation for shareholders.
To analyze how the industry evolved in this matter, it is used the information gathered in the Access to Medicine Index (ATMI) reports published in November 2014 and November 2016. It provides a comprehensive overview of the top 20 research-based pharmaceutical companies’ efforts to make medicines, vaccines and diagnostics more accessible in low- and middle-income countries.
Overall, a larger amount of companies have implemented strategies for increasing access to medicine, many of them approaching it as a way of developing business in emerging markets. More than 100 products for high-burden diseases entered the pipeline since 2014, being R&D one of the areas where there is evidence that the industry responds to externally identified needs.
The proportion of collaborative research models for high-priority, low-incentive products increased in the last two years. R&D conducted in partnership includes access plans more often and earlier than in-house R&D, highlighting that collaborative models are an effective mechanism for engaging the biopharmaceutical sector in R&D oriented to the needs of populations in low- and middle-income countries.
Modest improvements were achieved in terms of product deployment. Voluntary licensing have been expanding the last two years, more compounds have been covered by voluntary license agreements, and for the first time moving beyond HIV/AIDS and extending them to hepatitis C. Even though steps are promising, large middle-income countries (MICs) are often excluded from licenses despite the fact that they are home to the majority of the world’s poor. Efforts for moving the product from the pipeline to the patient differ across companies, but a persistent trend of limited registration of new products in countries where they are particularly needed dominates the industry.
Most of the companies analyzed by the ATMI have now engaged in equitable pricing strategies, tailoring prices to different population segments. Although companies are considering affordability for more products than they did in 2014, the proportion of the industry portfolio covered by such pricing strategies remains static at one-third.
The biopharmaceutical industry is very diverse and this is reflected in the way companies approach access to medicine, which access challenges they choose to address and how, and which products they prioritize. Evidence shows the industry is continuing to step up its efforts to improve access to medicine in developing countries. It is analyzed below the performance of biopharmaceutical companies in four key industry-levels:
Confermo di essere un cliente professionale
Le informazioni e le opinioni contenute in questa sezione del Sito cui sta accedendo sono destinate esclusivamente a Clienti Professionali come definiti dal Regolamento Consob n. 16190 del 29 ottobre 2007 (articolo 26 e Allegato 3) e dalla Direttiva CE n. 2004/39 (Allegato II), e sono concepite ad uso esclusivo di tali categorie di soggetti. Ne è vietata la divulgazione, anche solo parziale.
Al fine di accedere a tale sezione riservata, si prega di confermare di essere un Cliente Professionale, declinando Robeco qualsivoglia responsabilità in caso di accesso effettuato da una persona che non sia un cliente professionale.
In ogni caso, le informazioni e le opinioni ivi contenute non costituiscono un'offerta o una sollecitazione all'investimento e non costituiscono una raccomandazione o consiglio, anche di carattere fiscale, o un'offerta, finalizzate all'investimento, e non devono in alcun caso essere interpretate come tali.
Prima di ogni investimento, per una descrizione dettagliata delle caratteristiche, dei rischi e degli oneri connessi, si raccomanda di esaminare il Prospetto, i KIIDs delle classi autorizzate per la commercializzazione in Italia, la relazione annuale o semestrale e lo Statuto, disponibili sul presente Sito o presso i collocatori.
L’investimento in prodotti finanziari è soggetto a fluttuazioni, con conseguente variazione al rialzo o al ribasso dei prezzi, ed è possibile che non si riesca a recuperare l'importo originariamente investito.