Big Pharma Improves Access to Medicine in Developing World

The Access to Medicine Foundation has released its 2012 Access to Medic Index (ATM Index). The ATM Index is designed to provide independent, unbiased and credible information regarding individual pharmaceutical companies' progress on making drugs and other medical products more available and affordable in developing countries.

"We are publishing the Index for the third time," said Wim Leereveld, CEO of the Access to Medicine Foundation, "and it has matured to the point that we are now able to provide some robust trend analysis on how individual companies, and the industry as a whole, are evolving their approach to access to medicine."

The ATM Index ranks the top 20 pharmaceutical companies on their efforts to provide greater access to medicine. Topping the list this year is London-based GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK), which also led the rankings the previous two times they were published, in 2008 and 2010.

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Harry Stevens is a freelance reporter covering climate change, corporate social responsibility, social enterprise, and sustainable finance. Harry has contributed to several media outlets, including Justmeans, GreenBiz, SocialEarth, and Sustainablog. You can follow Harry on Twitter: @Harry_Stevens