A Catalyst for Change

Last week, I traveled with Andrew Witty as he spoke with media, government leaders, and faculty and students at Harvard Medical School about GSK's new policies to address the needs of the developing world. 

With refreshing candor, Andrew outlined our goal to be more innovative, open-minded and flexible to help people afflicted with neglected tropical diseases--diseases like malaria and lymphatic filiriasis (LF) which often don't take precedence--and the barriers to access facing the world's poorest countries.

Our plan includes four specific changes, including:

·         a more flexible approach to intellectual property in the 50 least-developed countries in the world through the development of a patent pool for neglected tropical diseases

·         a reduction in prices for patented medicines in these countries so that they will be no higher than 25 percent of the price in the developed world, assuming we can cover our cost of goods

·         a "bricks and mortar" approach to the patent pool by opening the doors of our R&D facility in Tres Cantos, Spain to external partners with the goal of creating a truly world-class, global center of excellence for diseases of the developing world

·         the re-investment of 20% of the-albeit very small-profit we make selling medicines in the least developed countries in infrastructure projects, such as the building of clinics, nurse education and training, and perhaps even new supply chain mechanisms to get medicines to rural areas.

The message was simple: we do not claim to have all of the answers, nor that we can change the world.  However, we have chosen to take a risk by evolving our business practices and model for the developing world.  We will not to shirk from difficult issues or hard decisions.  In doing so, we aim to be a catalyst for change.

While we cannot predict the response of our allies or our critics, we hope that others will join us in these endeavors because it's the right thing to do.  So far, the response has been supportive.  (Read more from The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and The Guardian (UK)).