The United Nations Summit on the Millennium Development Goals on 20-22 September will review progress and look at ways of accelerating progress. The UN’s 2010 MDG Report indicates that the goals are achievable, despite uneven progress, and exhorts everyone to try to keep the promise of the Millennium Declaration.
Mr. Haruo Naito, President of the IFPMA and President & CEO of Eisai Co., Ltd., said: “The research-based pharmaceutical industry shares the UN Secretary General’s belief in the importance of the MDGs for humankind and has responded with a broad range of contributions, mostly aimed at improving health in developing countries. While achievement of the MDGs will help to put us on the path towards a more stable, just and secure world, they will only take us so far in that direction. A longer-term effort is needed to further reduce global health inequalities, and I therefore encourage our industry to maintain its MDG-related efforts beyond the 2015 horizon.
The research-based pharmaceutical industry plays a unique role in improving health: we cannot fix health inequalities on our own, but we need to keep playing our part.” The research-based pharmaceutical industry’s main contribution to improved global health lies in its unique role in developing new medicines and vaccines for all diseases. In addition, it helps to work towards achievement of the health-related UN MDGs through a large and growing range of programs, working with expert partner organizations from both public and private sectors to improve health in developing countries. These partnerships facilitate access to medicines, strengthen healthcare systems, educate patients and populations at risk, and conduct research and development to create new medicines and vaccines to address diseases which disproportionately affect developing countries. 1
Geneva, 16 September 2010
1For details, see Note to the Editor “Overview of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Industry Contributions to the Health-Related UN MDGs” IFPMA, 16 September 2010
