A/63/263 Annex Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in relation to Access to Medicines Preamble 08-45647 a. Almost 2 billion people lack access to essential medicines; improving access to existing medicines could save 10 million lives each year, 4 million of them in Africa and South-East Asia. b. Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, such as reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, depends upon improving access to medicines. c. One of the Millennium Development Goal targets is, “in cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, (to) provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries”. d. Medical care and access to medicines are vital features of the right to the highest attainable standard of health. e. Access to medicines depends upon effective, integrated, responsive and accessible health systems. In many countries, health systems are failing and collapsing, constituting a grave obstacle to increasing access to medicines. While a range of actors can take immediate steps to increase access to medicines, health systems must be strengthened as a matter of priority and urgency. f. States have the primary responsibility for realizing the right to the highest attainable standard of health and increasing access to medicines. g. In addition to States, numerous national and international actors share a responsibility to increase access to medicines. h. As confirmed by the United Nations Global Compact, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights, and many others, the private business sector has human rights responsibilities. i. Pharmaceutical companies, including innovator, generic and biotechnology companies, have human rights responsibilities in relation to access to medicines. j. Pharmaceutical companies also have other responsibilities, for example, a responsibility to enhance shareholder value. k. Pharmaceutical companies are subject to several forms of internal and external monitoring and accountability; however, these mechanisms do not usually monitor, and hold a company to account, in relation to its human rights responsibilities to enhance access to medicines. l. Pharmaceutical companies contribute in various ways to the realization of the right to the highest attainable standard of health, such as providing individuals and communities with important information about public health issues. 15