The lack of access to drugs is caused by three factors:
High prices of patents
Pharmaceutical laboratories, when they create a drug, determine its price, which is usually high given the fact that there is no competition on the market and they register the patent for at least a 20 year-period.
When a patent expires, generic drugs can be produced. They are bioequivalent to the drugs of reference, which means they have the same efficiency, security and quality. The great advantage is that they are between 50 and 90% cheaper than the drugs of reference because they don't have to cover the R+D expenses.
Scarce Research and Development (R+D)
Most of the Research and Development is in the hands of large pharmaceutical industries that are financed basically with private funds. They look for profitable products destined to a public who can pay a high price for new drugs. This explains the fact that only 1% of the new pharmaceutical products marketed between 1975 and 1997 were specific for tropical illnesses.
Lack of health infrastructures that can guarantee access to essential drugs.
Often the lack of access to drugs in developing countries is frequently the sum of different factors, such as:
- The lack of sanitary personnel trained to prescribe, dispense and advise drugs.
- The lack of sanitary personnel trained to guarantee their rational use.
- The lack of infrastructure to communicate the remote regions with the distribution centers.
- An inadequate management of financial resources, due to a bad distribution, a lack of programming or because there is no reliable compilation of data which could help to define needs.
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