E-DRUG: Local Production and Access to medical technologies
--------------------------------------------------------
Dear Colleagues:
I note the e-drug communication of 18 November on "Local Production", see URL for the news report.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=94212, in which the article states that "A Kenyan pharmaceutical company has been given the green light by the World Health Organization (WHO) to start producing antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, which could result in significant savings for the government's growing treatment programme. "
Indeed, the "horse is out of the barn" (as they say in these parts) and, notwithstanding those who think local production is possibly only worthwhile if it is cheaper to make a medicine locally than to import it, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania are, or are planning to, make their own medicines and there seems to be an ever-increasing interest in the subject... again.
I note the work by WHO (of which I was involved) on this subject ( http://www.who.int/phi/implementation/tech_transfer/en/index.html).
For many of us, one key unanswered question is to what extent local production of medical products actually improves access to these products. It might seem bizarre that local production would not obviously improve access but the literature on this subject (i.e., medicines and devices-not vaccines) for low and middle income countries is surprisingly sparse and ambiguous.
We just published a literature review on this subject (http://www.southernmedreview.org/index.php/smr/article/view/1002: Kaplan et al.) for those interested.
How can we actually measure the link between local production and "access"? I would be interested in hearing from those who are thinking about this or, indeed, about literature that actually tries to measure the link.
Regards to all
Warren Kaplan PhD, JD, MPH
Center for Global Health & Development
Boston University School of Public Health
801 Masschusetts Avenue
Boston, MA 02118
617 414 1152 (office)
617 414 1261 (fax)
"Kaplan, Warren" <wak@bu.edu>