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Translation & Impact Lines of action
Translation and Impact

Innovation and Access to Essential Medicines

Alternatives to a broken model

Translation and Impact Lines of Action

Equitable access to essential medicines remains one of the major challenges in global health. According to international estimates, millions of people still lack adequate treatments for preventable or treatable diseases, a situation that disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries but is also evident in high-income settings due to rising prices and inequalities within health systems. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we also witnessed the importance of strategic autonomy in the development and production of treatments, vaccines, and diagnostics.

The current model of pharmaceutical innovation creates tensions between incentives for research and development and the need to guarantee universal access, reigniting debate on how to reform mechanisms related to financing, intellectual property, technology transfer, and governance in the sector.

ISGlobal addresses this challenge by critically analysing the relationship between biomedical innovation, financial sustainability, and health equity. Through applied research, public policy analysis, and participation in international debates, we contribute to exploring alternatives to a system that, in many cases, allows available treatments to remain out of reach for those who need them. Our work examines issues such as R&D models oriented towards public health needs, the role of public investment, and mechanisms to balance private benefits with the collective interest. Initiatives such as the Science for Patients project have placed the scientific community at the centre of the debate on how to transform pharmaceutical innovation to better respond to global priorities such as antimicrobial resistance or access to innovative therapies.

The goal is to contribute to a more responsible, transparent, and public health–oriented innovation ecosystem. Through strategic reports, evidence generation, and collaboration with academic, institutional, and civil society actors, ISGlobal promotes proposals that support fairer models of development and access, strengthening the capacity of health systems to guarantee essential treatments and reduce inequalities in a context of rapid scientific and technological transformation.

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