This will give low-income countries better access to much needed medication
This week, drugmaker Pfizer revealed that they will provide low-income countries with drugs at cost. This means that the company won’t profit from selling the medication. This would make treatments like chemo therapy, cancer therapies and antibiotics more accessible in low-income countries.
Vaccine
You might know Pfizer as the company that provided the world with the much needed BioNTech/Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine to protect people from getting infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. But during that time, it became clear that the vaccine, and other kinds of medication, were unevenly disturbed among countries. Especially low-income countries got the smallest proportion of all deliveries. In 2021, Pfizer already turned the tide by sharing the intellectual property of the COVID-19 treatments. And now, they decided to expand this practice to five hundred types of medication. Making their medication more accessible to millions of people around the world.
Accessible medication
The company started their new initiative in May, calling it “An Accord for a Healthier World,” according to Fierce Pharma. At that time, the company shared twenty-three types of medication, including an antiviral called Paxlovid, a drug that reduces the risk of hospitalization and death from the Coronavirus. Now, the company has announced to also share certain off-patent products like chemotherapies, therapies for treating cancer and antibiotics, with low-income countries. This means that over 2 million people in low-income countries each year might get the treatment they need. According to Pfizer, the goal is to “better align with disease burden and unmet patient needs in the countries.”
This new expansion will open access to Pfizer’s drugs to over a billion people worldwide.
Also read: Scientists may have found a way to stop COVID from spreading
Source: Fierce Pharma, Rush, Reuters | Image: Unsplash, Hal Gatewood