UN urges broader access to drugs

Drug companies and governments must do more to ensure access to drugs among the world’s poorest people, a United Nations report has urged.

The final report of the UN secretary general’s high level panel on access to medicines said that despite the improvements brought by medical innovation in the field of vaccines and antiretroviral drugs for HIV/AIDS over the past few decades, “millions of people continue to suffer and die from treatable conditions because of a lack of access to health technologies.”1

It said that investment in research and development (R&D) did not adequately …