Expert Quotes
In summary, the requirement of the Health Impact Fund to assess health benefits is certainly feasible at a reasonable expense and is indeed exactly what is done by IQWiG and other HTA agencies (e.g. HAS in France or NICE in England and Wales) on a daily basis.
The Health Impact Fund is one of those proposals that can be considered one hundred percent innovative in relation to the question: How do we solve the problem that we actually have such a rich world, and yet in the poorer countries people have no medicines? In my view, this is the very best example of applied ethics that I know of. Here, ethical theory is combined with economic knowledge and applied to an actual problem, and you simply can't do better than that.
The Health Impact Fund would be an important step towards affordable universal health coverage, which rightly is the WHO's top priority, and towards achieving the third Sustainable Development Goal.
The Access to Medicine Foundation is committed to improving access to life-saving medicines to people living in low- and middle-income countries. Through its expertise and resources, the pharmaceutical sector has a key role in achieving this. The mission of the Access to Medicine Foundation is to encourage the pharmaceutical sector to do more. We recognise in the Health Impact Fund model an opportunity to motivate pharmaceutical companies to increase access to their products, to invest more in research for diseases that primarily affect the world's most disadvantaged people and to achieve wider distribution. We support the shared goals and aspirations of a pilot of the Health Impact Fund.
With sufficient funding, the Health Impact Fund could be an effective way of stimulating investment from small and large bio-pharmaceutical companies to address the needs of low-income populations. It would align commercial incentives with social goals of reducing excess morbidity and mortality. It could support companies, including Janssen, in their efforts to develop innovative products within a competitive, market-based framework that rewards outcomes.
An international Health Impact Fund (HIF) should be established as a supplement to the current patent system. Through Health Impact Fund pharmaceutical companies can voluntarily register their drugs and commit to making them available at the lowest price against payment of support over ten years from the Fund on the basis of major health impact their drugs have. This gives companies incentives to develop medicines for those with the greatest health needs and not only those with the greatest purchasing power.The Health Impact Fund plan is both innovative and timely. There is a clear need for incentives for creating medicines with a significant global health impact and ensuring their widespread and sustained availability. A market-based approach, which does not require wholesale changes to international or national intellectual property laws, should be well-received by potential donors and industry participants alike.