Top drug de­vel­op­ers are “inch­ing ahead” in im­prov­ing ac­cess to much-need­ed drugs around the world — an is­sue that has been un­der­scored by the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic. But there’s still more work to do, Ac­cess to Med­i­cine Foun­da­tion ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Jayas­ree Iy­er said.

Every two years, the Ac­cess to Med­i­cines In­dex ranks the top 20 biotechs lead­ing the push for bet­ter ac­cess to med­i­cines in low- and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries. This year’s re­port, pub­lished Tues­day, looks at drug ac­cess in 106 coun­tries.

Glax­o­SmithK­line led the pack for an­oth­er year, close­ly trailed by No­var­tis. John­son & John­son ranked third, with Pfiz­er and Sanofi right be­hind it.

Jayas­ree Iy­er

But al­though com­pa­nies are “inch­ing ahead” in their ef­forts, we’re still far from where we need to be, Iy­er said in a state­ment.

“… Ac­tiv­i­ty still con­cen­trates on too few dis­eases and too few coun­tries, thus ben­e­fit­ing on­ly a frac­tion of the peo­ple in need,” Iy­er said. “What is more, most of the ef­fort is be­ing made by on­ly a small num­ber of firms, cre­at­ing a frag­ile sit­u­a­tion where any re­treat could have dire con­se­quences.”

The rank­ings were pub­lished as re­ports emerge that it could be years be­fore those in low-in­come coun­tries get Covid-19 vac­cines. Last month, Reuters ac­cessed in­ter­nal pa­pers re­gard­ing the WHO, CEPI and Gavi-led CO­V­AX pro­gram that warned a lack of funds, sup­ply risks and com­plex con­trac­tu­al arrange­ments could leave those in poor na­tions with­out vac­cines un­til 2024.

“Too many peo­ple lack ac­cess to in­no­v­a­tive health prod­ucts emerg­ing from R&D pipelines,” Iy­er said.

In a state­ment, she en­cour­aged com­pa­nies to “be­come a cat­a­lyst, not a bar­ri­er” to eq­ui­table drug ac­cess. And the in­dus­try ap­pears to be mov­ing in the right di­rec­tion.

Eight of the 20 com­pa­nies ranked in the in­dex are now de­vel­op­ing sys­tem­at­ic ap­proach­es to ac­cess plan­ning — a vast in­crease from the sin­gle com­pa­ny do­ing so (No­var­tis) when the last re­port came out in 2018. But that still leaves 12 com­pa­nies with­out strate­gies for bet­ter ac­cess. And less than half of key prod­ucts con­trolled by the 20 com­pa­nies are of­fered through ac­cess strate­gies in low­er-mid­dle or low-in­come coun­tries.

To take a clos­er look, the foun­da­tion ze­roed in on 199 med­i­cines, vac­cines, di­ag­nos­tics and vec­tor con­trol prod­ucts deemed “es­sen­tial for a well-func­tion­ing health­care sys­tem.” Of those, on­ly 13% of prod­ucts that need to be ad­min­is­tered by health care pro­fes­sion­als (like in­jectable treat­ments for can­cer) are cov­ered by ac­cess strate­gies in at least one low-in­come coun­try. And for self-ad­min­is­tered meds (like pills) that num­ber is 26%, ac­cord­ing to the in­dex.

Just un­der half (42%) of the self-ad­min­is­tered and pro­fes­sion­al­ly ad­min­is­tered prod­ucts weren’t tied to ac­cess strate­gies in any of the 106 coun­tries the in­dex eval­u­at­ed.

“This re­veals a wide­spread lack of con­sid­er­a­tion for how peo­ple liv­ing in these coun­tries will gain ac­cess to these prod­ucts, which are large­ly con­trolled by the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies in ques­tion,” the re­port states.

The com­pa­ny with the most can­di­dates cov­ered by ac­cess plans is GSK, which has com­mit­ted to de­vel­op­ing ac­cess plans for all projects that yield pos­i­tive Phase II re­sults. Pfiz­er, which ranked third for most can­di­dates cov­ered by ac­cess strate­gies, be­gins such plan­ning for all prod­ucts two years be­fore launch, ac­cord­ing to the foun­da­tion.

While such ini­tia­tives are a step in the right di­rec­tion, the foun­da­tion point­ed out that on­ly small num­bers of peo­ple per coun­try are ben­e­fit­ing from them.

“Af­ter years of en­cour­ag­ing ac­cess plan­ning, we are now see­ing a strate­gic shift in this di­rec­tion by phar­ma com­pa­nies. This could rad­i­cal­ly change how fast ac­cess to new prod­ucts is achieved — if com­pa­ny lead­er­ship is de­ter­mined to en­sure peo­ple liv­ing in low- and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries are not last in line,” Iy­er said.

CRLs. 483s. CBER, CDER and RWE. For biopharma professionals, these acronyms command attention because of the fundamental role FDA plays in drug development. Now Endpoints is doubling down on regulatory coverage, and launching a weekly report focusing on developments out of White Oak, with analysis and insight into what it all means.

Coverage will be led by our new senior editor, Zachary Brennan. He joins Endpoints from POLITICO, where he covered pharma. Prior to that he was the managing editor for Regulatory Focus, a news publication from the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society.

One of Europe’s most high-profile biopharma investors is getting $540 million to invest in new crossover deals for late-stage companies.

The Paris-based VC says the fresh Sofinnova Crossover Fund raise positions them as the “largest crossover investor in Europe dedicated to late-stage biopharma and medtech investments.”

They got a leg up in France after winning a special “Tibi” designation from the French government, giving them access to a pool of €6 billion that helped them gain an edge with institutional investors. Since they were founded close to 50 years ago, the venture group has backed more than 500 companies and currently has more than €2 billion under management.

Seattle-based Presage Biosciences, which approaches drug development through its microdosing platform, has some new partnerships and cash to come with them.

Presage closed a $13 million financing round Tuesday, aiming to expand its network of clinical trial sites and advance development of its microdosing injection devices. They also closed partnership deals with Merck and Maverick Therapeutics.

The financing included $7 million from new investors, including the LabCorp Venture Fund, Bristol Myers Squibb, and InHarv Partners. An additional $6 million convertible note from Takeda Ventures will convert to equity.