We give medicines, expertise and funding to help address diseases that primarily affect the underserved.
Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), malaria and tuberculosis affect public health and the economic well-being of over 1 billion people worldwide. They disproportionately affect people in low- and middle-income countries.
As a result, ending these diseases by 2030 is a key sub-target for United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.
AbbVie was an original signatory to the London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases, a global partnership among pharmaceutical companies, donors, endemic countries, and nonprofit organizations that aims to eliminate or control 10 NTDs.
UN Sustainable Development Goal 3
Through our pro-bono research program, over 400 AbbVie researchers donated nearly 40,000 hours in 2018 to discovering and developing medicines for these diseases.
A chance to help people with the devastating disease onchocerciasis, or river blindness, brought two retirees back to the lab.
We work closely with partners to help make medicines available where they are most urgently needed. For example, we have worked with the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) to help provide access to medicines for HIV and HCV.
MPP provides access to medicines in low- and middle-income countries by granting qualified generic manufacturers royalty-free intellectual property licenses to make lower-cost versions of important medicines. AbbVie has three licensing agreements with MPP, providing royalty-free licenses to our intellectual property for these medicines.
Details of these agreements are available on the MPP website.
We partner with global humanitarian organizations to supply our donated medicines to help people facing urgent health care needs.
We have eight enduring medicine donation programs, through which we provide ongoing supplies of medicines to nonprofit organizations conducting long-term programs for chronically underserved populations. In addition, we often supply medicines to relief organizations for response to natural and humanitarian emergencies. We provide other periodic medicine donations to help relieve unmet medical needs in communities around the world.
We know that addressing the health needs of the underserved requires a community-level approach. AbbVie and the AbbVie Foundation help to strengthen community health systems through programming and financial support. We focus on areas where our experience and expertise align with significant opportunity to improve public health, including HIV, HCV, neonatology and pharmacovigilance.
In Romania and Malawi, the AbbVie Foundation supports the
Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative
(BIPAI) to provide comprehensive HIV care and treatment. In 2018
alone, this program served over 31,000 people.
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As new medicines become available in low- and middle-income
countries, it’s critical that local health systems have capabilities
support patient safety. We give funding and safety science expertise
to initiatives working to strengthen pharmacovigilance systems in
Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Every year, 15 million babies worldwide are born prematurely.
Being born early can affect multiple aspects of development. In more
than 20 countries, our ‘Good to Grow’ initiative convenes local
stakeholders with the aim of improving standards of prevention, care,
and support for premature infants.
The WHO has set a target to eliminate hepatitis C virus
infection by 2030. We are joining the global hepatitis community in
supporting a strategy called micro-elimination, targeted elimination
in specific cities, regions or patient groups. In 2018, we launched
over 20 projects in 17 countries.
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