Secrets Cost Lives: Transparency and access to medical products

As an international medical humanitarian organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has repeatedly witnessed how the world’s most vulnerable people are left without access to the lifesaving medicines, diagnostics tests and vaccines they need. Ensuring access to these medical products requires access to information throughout their life cycle, from the R&D stages to when … Read more

Danaher continues to charge exorbitant prices for lifesaving medical tests despite urgent demands for price reductions by several Ministries of Health

Geneva, 17 June 2024 – In September 2023, the US corporation Danaher, which owns diagnostics maker Cepheid, announced a price reduction of the primary GeneXpert test used to diagnose tuberculosis (TB), from US$9.98 to $7.97, amid pressure from TB activists. Since then, officials from the Ministries of Health of Sierra Leone, Ghana, Ukraine, Belarus and … Read more

Urgent call for Europe to improve treatment access for tuberculosis: Many TB medicines and formulations accessible in lower- and middle-income countries remain unaffordable or unavailable in Europe

Berlin, 6 June 2024: As the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded a meeting with European health officials and civil society to improve access to tuberculosis (TB) medicines in the European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA), Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), along with TB activists, urge European countries to maintain this momentum by taking immediate … Read more

Gavi’s next strategy must make sure to reach the 10 million children in fragile and humanitarian settings who are missing vaccines

Where are we now? This week, on 6-7 June 2024, the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is meeting in Geneva to approve and endorse the one-page framework for Gavi 6.0, which outlines its strategy for the five-year period from 2026-2030. Gavi, which is funded by public and private donors, was set up nearly 25 … Read more

MSF reveals cost of its landmark TB clinical trial: €34 million

MSF urges public and non-profit actors to publish clinical trial costs to improve access to medical products for all. Geneva, 25 April 2024 – At the 5th WHO Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Policies conference today, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) presented the costs of its landmark TB-PRACTECAL clinical trial that helped identify a shorter, … Read more

As Gavi plans next five-year strategy, it must do more to get vaccines to people excluded from vaccination

With routine vaccination efforts failing to reach people in fragile and emergency settings, MSF is seeing low vaccination coverage and more outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, like diphtheria and measles  Geneva, 15 April 2024 – Ahead of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance’s Board Retreat on April 17-18, where the Board will shape Gavi’s strategic framework for the next … Read more

Time for $5: MSF demands Cepheid and Danaher lower the price of medical tests

Help us stop the profiteering on medical tests Sign the petition to demand drug manufacturers Cepheid and Danaher drop the price of GeneXpert tests for low- and middle-income countries. MSF and partners protest outside Danaher in Washington, DC, demanding price drop to $5 per test  Ahead of World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, the international medical humanitarian … Read more

MSF response to signing of EFTA-India trade agreement

Geneva/Delhi, 12 March 2024: On 10 March 2024, it was announced that India and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) signed a free trade agreement (FTA) they have been negotiating since 2006. Full text of agreement along with Annex and the Record of Understanding has been published by EFTA. Based on MSF’s analysis, while some provisions that undermined … Read more

MSF warns governments are failing to test, treat and prevent TB in children

Governments must immediately implement the latest WHO guidelines to stop children from dying from this deadly yet curable disease  Geneva, 14 November 2023 – Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)  welcomed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) ‘Roadmap towards ending TB in children and adolescents’ released today, and urged all countries with high TB burdens to prioritise … Read more

MSF responds to groundbreaking news that Johnson & Johnson will not enforce patents on key TB drug bedaquiline in low- and middle-income countries

30 September 2023, Geneva Christophe Perrin, TB Advocacy Pharmacist, MSF Access Campaign: “We welcome Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) announcement finally paving the way for unfettered access to affordable generic versions of bedaquiline for all people living with drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) who need the drug in low- and middle-income countries. We need all newer TB innovations to be … Read more