Expressing apprehension about the rising prices and market access of medicines and pharmaceutical items, experts concerned yesterday said that the governments across the globe should exercise its regulatory power to fix fair price of medicines. The information was shared during the third Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) anniversary lecture on "Health and Global Trade Regime: Is it affecting equal access to medicines?" at a hotel in the capital yesterday, the experts also called to strengthen the monitoring of the entire healthcare sector to ensure equal access for all.
The anniversary lecture series has been initiated by the civil society think tank CPD to give an opportunity to the Bangladeshi audience to listen to and interact with eminent scholars on issues of current and strategic developmental importance to Bangladesh.
Delivering the third CPD anniversary lecture Prof Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, vice-chair of the UN Committee for Development Policy said, millions lack access to medicines in developing countries; escalating prices of branded medicines in developed countries and developing countries as well.
Gaps in innovation and access to medicines and treatments continue to remain one of critical challenges for humanity in the 21st century, she added
“The problem is the threat of costly arbitration discourages policies to protect public health and provide accessible medical services for all citizens in many countries,” she said.
Terming the 21st century trade agreements as underlying reasons behind the global disparity in the medicine and healthcare sector, Prof Sakiko said that the trade and investment agreements are no longer about tariffs and trade-rather more about investments and promoting investment returns.
She said that the natures of trade agreements are mostly bilateral or regional rather than multilateral. “Thus these agreements are less coordinated, strengthens power of large of large countries only.
Prof Sakiko said that there are misalignment between need, innovation and access in the global medicine and healthcare sector. She said that 26 Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) contribute to 14 per cent of global disease burden but constitutes only 1.4 per cent  of global health related research and development (R&d) expenditure.
She said that drug resistant viruses cause 700,000 deaths in each year and if unchecked, would cause 10 million deaths by 2050. “Unfortunately, only one novel class of antibiotics is developed in the last 40 years. The market based incentives are also inadequate to meet the need for R&D investment in new antibiotics.’
Commenting on her lecture, other speakers said research works should be increased among universities, pharmaceutical companies and international organisations to invent new medicines to address innovation gaps in the health sector.
With rapidly rising prices of medicines and treatment across the world, the issue affects not only poor people and poor countries, but also it affects people in high-income countries, they added.
Chairman of CPD Prof Rehman Sobhan Executive Director of CPD Mustafizur Rahman, Distinguished Fellow of CPD Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, among others, addressed the programme.