This statement calls on all pharmaceutical companies to abide by the following principles during the coronavirus crisis:

• Ensure that your employees are safe and healthy and look after their well-being.
• A core responsibility of the pharmaceutical sector is to develop and provide affordable worldwide access to health products, including diagnostics, medicines and vaccines. The negative societal and financial impact of the COVID-19 crisis is unprecedented and needs to be resolved soon. Enforcing patents, excessive price setting, not disclosing relevant findings or securing extended market exclusivity through, for example, orphan drug designation should not run counter to this responsibility.
• Proactively and innovatively reach out, collaborate and share relevant data in a timely manner with governments, the health sector, academia and your peers.
• Focus on international cooperation to ensure supply chains are up and running, so that in all countries medical professionals will have access to health products, personal protection and all the relevant equipment they need and that supplies are distributed in a fair manner across and within countries. Especially in these times when international transport and production processes are disrupted.
• Ensure that in the long term your research and development processes sufficiently address infectious diseases. To prevent pandemics like COVID-19 from happening again, it is crucial that large research-based pharmaceutical companies re-engage and re-invest in R&D programmes for infectious diseases.
• As many of your clients and suppliers are hit hard financially, be understanding and take measures to assure that bills sent by your suppliers are still being paid, employment is protected and your relationship with them is maintained.

By signing this Investor Statement Triodos Investment Management wants to emphasise that the sector’s core responsibility is to develop and provide affordable worldwide access to healthcare products, including diagnostics, medicines and vaccines.

Read the full Investor Statement.