IFPMA tells UN General Assembly of R&D pharmaceutical industry's contributions to Millennium Development Goals

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) this week delivered a formal statement to the United Nations General Assembly Hearings with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society and the private sector on the UN Millennium Development Goals.

Noting that it was the only industry body selected to make such a statement, The IFPMA outlined its members' major contributions to the health-related UN MDGs, their observations on the lessons learnt from their wide range of programs to help improve health in developing countries, and recommendations for advancing progress in this area.

IFPMA director general Eduardo Pisani said: 'The scale of the challenge posed by the UN MDGs is large. We can only hope to achieve them through global partnerships, with contributions from countries of all levels of economic development, and the active participation of governments, intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, philanthropic groups and the private sector. The R&D-based pharmaceutical industry contributes to global health through its normal business activity of developing new medicines, but it also makes additional contributions to improving developing country health, through an extensive range of not-for-profit and philanthropic partnership programs to improve access to health care, strengthen health care capacity and develop new medicines for diseases of the developing world.'