The Role of Pharmaceutical Companies in Making Accessible and Affordable Medicines of Good Quality in Developing Countries

Using the example of a global pharmaceutical industry, I examine the role of private companies in fulfilling social aims. I address the problem of aid in the context of availability of affordable and safe medicines in developing countries, which is one aspect of fulfilling the right to health. Are the mechanisms of free market and philanthropic actions of pharmaceutical companies sufficient to guarantee essential medicines to the most vulnerable inhabitants of the world? Are international pharmaceutical concerns obliged to guarantee human rights only or to deliver human rights, in particular the right to health, as well? The article presents the conflict of interests between profit-driven pharmaceutical industry and ethically-driven public health, which can be fully addressed only by certain legal regulations. The thesis argued in the article is that free market itself cannot solve its failures (such as undersupply of innovations, undersupply of non-beneficial medicines, monopolistic policies and pricing); to solve the problem it is required to set up public institutions and legal regulations of both local and global scope. Neither free market, nor benevolent aid actions of pharmaceutical companies can address the problem of health care in developing countries, where the lack of medicines is a small aspect of a much broader and intricate problem of poverty and the weakness of state institutions which are not responsive to the basic needs of its citizens