For people living in wealthy countries, access to the best treatments and medicines is often taken for granted. While there may be debates over the cost of a drug or delays before it becomes available, most patients ultimately receive the treatment they need. This disparity is simply inhumane. If life or death depends on where you were born, and we have the means to change that, failing to act is unacceptable.

Inaction kills. 

A medicine that costs €/$100,000 is unaffordable for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, the same medicine can often be produced commercially for just 10% of that price, making it accessible to LMICs. This isn’t just a theoretical argument—it’s a reality we have already witnessed with HIV/AIDS medications. 

When pharmaceutical companies grant their patents for LMICs to the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), the MPP can partner with manufacturers to produce generic versions at significantly lower costs. This approach has proven successful, as seen with HIV/AIDS treatments. Encouragingly, it has also been implemented for the cancer drug Nilotinib from Novartis, making it available for LMICs. The WHO’s Essential Medicines List includes 83 oncology drugs—one down, 82 to go. 

This concept is simple, effective, and can be implemented quickly by both governments and the pharmaceutical industry to benefit patients. 

• Today, patients in LMICs are dying unnecessarily—not by the hundreds or thousands, but by the millions. With better access to affordable medicines, their lives could be prolonged with a good quality of life or even saved entirely. 

• Governments must take responsibility by registering these medicines in their own countries. These are drugs that have already been approved by regulatory bodies like the FDA and EMA, so the process should be swift. However, some governments take six months to two years to complete registration. Shame on them! 

• From an industry perspective, this initiative costs almost nothing—just a minor expense for drug registration in each country, which is negligible. Pharmaceutical companies do not lose revenue or profit because they would never have sold these expensive medicines in LMICs anyway. On the contrary, they benefit by doing good for patients who would otherwise have no access to their treatments. Additionally, this effort improves their standing on the ATM Index. Chapeau! 

So, why shouldn’t we save lives? 

Peter Kapitein
Patient Advocate @ Inspire2Live