The Conversation: How can we get pharma companies to do more for global health? Try ranking them
Nicole Hassoun, associate professor at the State University of New York’s Binghamton University

“…[Pharmaceutical] companies have a moral and legal obligation to ensure access to essential medicines. … When companies set high prices, lobby to extend patent protections on important medicines, and do not develop enough new drugs for neglected diseases, they fail to live up to these obligations. … [T]he Global Health Organization … produces an index assessing the impact of drugs that treat some of the world’s most devastating diseases. As I argue in a recently published article in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, this could create an incentive for companies to live up to their obligations. … The hope is that consumers in developed countries will prefer to purchase everyday medicines from companies with better rankings on the Global Health Impact Index. … Millions of people suffer from devastating diseases in developing countries. By using data about what companies are doing for global health, we all might be able to push them to live up their obligations” (9/20).