Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation

EVENT: Making Pharma Fair
E

The Human Rights Responsibilities of Pharmaceutical Companies in Relation to Access to Medicines

Webinar on Thursday 3 March 3 PM CET

Webinar poster Making Pharma Fair with panelist info

Register here

How have pharmaceutical companies been performing according to international human rights principles in the pandemic?


The Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation has been monitoring this in our GCCP scorecard, which ranks pharmaceutical companies according to HR principles and international standards. The aim of GCCP project is to maximize the transparency of, and equitable global access to, Covid-19 medical products.

After our last successful webinars on The Power of Law (with a guideline directed at NGOs), we now turn to the pharmaceutical industry to stimulate a more equitable distribution of Covid-19 medical products and to more closely adhere to GCCP standards.

But how can this be achieved?

We have written a guideline expressly for this purpose. Pharmaceutical companies can consult our ‘Guidelines for Responsible Pharmaceutical Behaviour during Covid-19’ to align their practices with GCCP criteria.

In this next webinar, Making Pharma Fair, we plan to discuss the new Guidelines from all different perspectives. We have invited panelists from the human rights field, industry representatives/lobbyists, and the policymaking field.

We want to discuss how to stimulate pharma to apply these Guidelines in their own practices. Could they include them in their company code of ethics? Or in the VIG code of conduct? Could the Guidelines become national binding law? What are the implications of International Human Rights Law in all of this?

We hope you will join the discussion on 3 March 2022 at 3 PM CET.

Register here

Panelist info:

Hans Hogerzeil (MD, PhD) is a global expert on essential medicines, medicine policies and health systems in low- and middle income countries. He retired as WHO Director for Essential Medicines in May 2011. He is a founding member of the Global Health Law Groningen Research Centre (2015), which operates at the interface of international law and public health and he was Professor of Global Health there until 2019. Hans’ work is especially relevant to GCCP because he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Access to Medicine Foundation, which publishes the Access to Medicine Index.

Ella Weggen is a senior global health advocate focusing on the realization of equitable access to affordable medicines and other medical technologies worldwide. She coordinates the international consortium Covid-19 Innovations for All (CIFA), that encourages the sharing of intellectual property rights, know-how and technology needed for the production of medical products against Covid-19, such as vaccines and medicines. Ella has extended experience in influencing policy of the Dutch government, the European Union and the World Health Organization (WHO) on global health issues. She also worked at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an intern, and at the Political Affairs department of Amnesty International in the Netherlands. Thanks to her experience at the European Parliament in Brussels, she has extensive knowledge of how (EU level) politics work. Ella studied Political Science and Public International Law in Amsterdam.

Jaume Vidal is a Political Science graduate, specialising in International Relations, with a 15-year strong career on public health issues. His particular area of interest is the intersection between intellectual property rights, innovation, access to health technologies and human rights. His professional experience includes roles in various international organisations, think tanks and non-government organisations. Jaume leads HAI’s advocacy and campaign work on access to medicines in  Europe, including pricing, transparency, trade and research and development. He is also responsible for following up and interacting with World Health Organization bodies and initiatives.

Related Articles

Articles by Category