What is the Solution?

The Missing Medicines Coalition advocates for a variety of solutions to barriers to equitable access to medicines. There are many systems and philosophies in place that enable these barriers and we work to dismantle these while also tackling specific access to medicines issues. Our work largely consists of lobbying the UK Government to improve equitable access through changes to: 

Research and Development – the current system operates on the principle that competition drives innovation, however this leads to profit-driven investments into the research and development of new drugs. We believe we can do things differently and advocate for alternative research and development models.

Funding – we believe that conditions should be attached to public funding for the research and development of new medicines to ensure that the products of this funding are available and affordable for all. 

Manufacturing – we advocate for local manufacturing of medicines. For many medicines, manufacturing is limited to production lines that are chosen by the company that owns the medicine. This often limits production to a handful of companies often in Europe or America. 

Licensing, Patenting and Cost of Medicines – we advocate for open licensing of medicines so that they can be shared and produced in a way that ensures they are available and affordable for all. 

Transparency and Accountability – we want to see greater transparency and accountability within the current pharmaceutical system. Any research or medicine that is produced with public funds should be publicly available and have public return. 

In addition, we believe that none of this can be achieved without meaningful involvement of lived experience of health injustices. 

We acknowledge that we are a UK-based organisation and that this positionality impacts our work. We therefore work closely with partners to co-develop strategies for global access to medicines. To find out more about the anti-oppression values that we follow please view the STOPAIDS website. 

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