Health Law, Ethics & Policy Seminar Series
and
WHO Collaborating Centre for Governance, Transparency & Accountability in the Pharmaceutical Sector
present
Luca Genovese
Researcher – Access to Medicine Foundation
Access to Medicine: Benchmarking Pharmaceutical Companies in
Weak Regulatory Environments
Commentator:
Mariana Mota Prado (LLB, LLM, SJD)
Asociate Dean, Graduate Program
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Thursday, February 2, 2017
12:30 - 2:00
Solarium (Room FA2), Falconer Hall - 84 Queen's Park
Unethical behaviour throughout the medicine chain – from clinical trials to marketing practices - undermines access to medicine, particularly in low and middle-income countries. Given the potentially weaker legal controls in such markets, companies must be able to ensure the highest standards of behaviour across their operations. To achieve this, they need to implement compliance systems that minimise the risk of misconduct. In this presentation, Luca Genovese will introduce the work related to the Access to Medicine Index, an independent index for the pharmaceutical industry. The presentation will also provide an overview of the findings of the 2016 Access to Medicine Index, which analysed the access-to-medicine strategies of 20 of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies alongside their compliance systems for monitoring and enforcing ethical standards.
The Access to Medicine Index is a leading index for the pharmaceutical industry. It analyses 20 of the world largest research-based pharmaceutical companies that have products for high-burden diseases in low- and middle-income countries. The Index ranks these companies according to their efforts to improve access to medicine. It identifies best practices, highlights where progress is being made, and uncovers where critical action is still required. The Index is published by the Access to Medicine Foundation, a non-profit organisation based in the Netherlands. It aims to advance access to medicine in low- and middle-income countries, by stimulating and guiding the pharmaceutical industry to play a greater role in improving access to medicine. The Foundation has built consensus among stakeholders on what society expects of pharmaceutical companies regarding access to medicine. It continually defines and updates a list of ambitious, yet achievable actions for companies to take. The Foundation analyses and reports on how companies are fulfilling these actions, using its insights to catalyse further progress in the pharmaceutical industry.
Luca Genovese holds an Advanced Master in International Development from the Radboud University of Nijmegen, where amongst other topics he studied accountability frameworks for companies operating in development cooperation. At the Access to Medicine Foundation, Luca leads the research areas of General Access to Medicine Management and Market Influence & Compliance. After gaining experience as free-lance journalist in Italy, Luca worked in Congo on projects related to microcredit and rural development, prior to joining the UN World Food Programme in Burkina Faso. He has also worked as business analyst for a commodity trading company in Rotterdam. Before joining the Access to Medicine Foundation, Luca built up expertise on Public-Private Partnerships and Base-of-the-Pyramid markets while working at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. His academic background also includes an MA in International Relations from the University of Napoli “L’Orientale” and a BA in Communications and Journalism from the University of Salerno.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.
