By Lisa Sachs,
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Achieving widespread access to medicines will require a broader response to the
public health crisis, including responsible actions by developing country governments,
donor governments, the private sector and other members of society. Pharmaceutical
companies play an important role in the broad response to the health crisis. Today's
social contract, on which pharmaceutical companies depend to finance R&D and protect
intellectual property, demands companies to take creative, wide-ranging steps to increase
access to medicines and help protect the universal right to health. 97 Abbott's present
response to access to medicine issues is inadequate; Abbott engages in one dispute after
another with developing countries: shirking its responsibility to address the right to health
within its sphere of influence, engaging in expensive and time-consuming negotiations
and litigation over patent rights in markets that account for less than 1 percent of global
pharmaceutical sales, and drawing negative publicity and damage to its reputation in the
process.
(The
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre has published the Abbott Laboratories
response to this ICCR report.)