On Monday, 22 January 2024, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) delivered the following statement at the 154th session of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Executive Board on the Draft fourteenth general programme of work.
EB 154: KEI statement on the Draft fourteenth general programme of work
The draft fourteenth general programme of work needs to more explicitly recognize the crisis of high prices for medical technologies, and propose measures to make medicines for all more than an empty slogan divorced from actual policies.
There are two needed reforms. Better and more effective national laws and practices to address excessive or unaffordable pricing, and reforms of the policy framework for funding R&D, by delinking incentives from monopolies and high prices.
One challenge is to make access more equal for medicines designed for rare diseases. A different but also important challenge is to address the need for more equal access to the new weight loss drugs, to address health problems related to obesity, such as diabetes, mental health, heart and liver disease, and osteoarthritis.