Expensive medicines: ensuring objective appraisal and equitable access

In managing access to new drugs, simply continuing to react country-by-country and disease-by-disease is not sustainable. We need to be more forward-thinking and take some of the pressure off small purchasers and countries that are currently trying to make equitable decisions in isolation. We need to solve the fundamental problem of how to balance objectivity of appraisal and equity in access to new products; ensuring that medical advances are affordable, working with a viable pharmaceutical industry that responds to public health needs.