UNITAID helps accessing quality drugs at affordable prices

At an interactive session with Indian pharmaceuticals and diagnostics industry leaders organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and UNITAID (a global health initiative hosted by the WHO and in great part financed by a solidarity levy on airline tickets), Denis Broun, executive director of UNITAID, explained how the organization was addressing market shortcomings through a wide range of actions, rather than only by procuring products.

Market transformations lead to long-term improvements that better serve populations of developing countries by encouraging new producers to enter the market, stimulating competition, increasing transparency, improving the quality of medicines and diagnostics, and sustaining these changes. Market-based interventions became the unique feature of UNITAID during the first stage of its development.

He said UNITAID operates as a large scale, procurement group with the goal of correcting major shortcomings in the markets for drugs and preventive products for HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. Several major successful initiatives have been implemented, notably in the area of pediatric antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), second-line ARV drugs for adult HIV infection, long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets (LLINs) and access to drugs for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).