Enabling people to live longer, healthier, and more productive lives is fundamental to global health progress and economic growth.

Medicines and vaccines have already transformed the prevention, treatment, and control of NCDs and mental health around the world – and the next generation of medical developments will take us even further. But we know these innovations are meaningful only if they reach the people who need them.

Through partnerships and collaborations, we drive different activities in LMICs that contribute toward a shared goal of reducing NCD deaths globally.

This spans needs assessments, capacity building, promoting health literacy, fostering patient empowerment, strengthening health systems, and working on pricing and affordability solutions to make medicines more accessible to the global population.

NCD prevention and treatment is also a strategic investment. Today, the cost of inaction is USD $2 trillion. However, investing in the prevention, treatment, and control of NCDs would yield a 7-fold annual return in LMICs, leading to USD $230 billion in economic gain by 2030.

Vaccines protect people living with or at risk of NCDs.

For instance, HPV vaccines and Hepatitis B vaccines could prevent over 1 million cancer cases worldwide every year, including cervical cancer and liver cancers.

Vaccines also prevent infectious diseases like influenza, pneumococcal diseases, and RSV, which can worsen chronic conditions, trigger complications, or can lead to hospitalizations or death. Immunizing people living with NCDs can protect people’s health and reduce health system straining, both in the short term during seasonal infection peaks and over the longer term as populations age.

Vaccines are also a cost-effective intervention. An analysis across 10 high- and middle-income countries shows that comprehensive adult immunization prgrams can yield up to a 19 times return on investment for society.

The innovative pharmaceutical industry is constantly developing new ways of addressing comorbidities linked to cardio-renal-metabolic (CVRM) diseases. These include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, stroke, non-fatty liver disease, and obesity.

Over the years, scientists have discovered more about the interplay of various genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors affecting CVRM. This knowledge has allowed the innovative pharmaceutical industry to develop a range of effective treatments, include GLP receptor agonists, while ensuring access to existing treatments like antihypertensives, statins, and insulin.

Despite this remarkable progress, CVRM accounts for almost half of all NCD deaths. These interconnected conditions are frequently underdiagnosed and undertreated, and their economic burden is projected to reach approximately USD $28 trillion by 2030.

In LMICs, IFPMA supports more integrated care and multipronged action plans to prevent, diagnose, manage, and care for CVRM. We aspire to transform the CVRM disease landscape by building health system capacity for improved early intervention and secondary prevention.

According to the WHO:

In the 100 years since insulin was discovered, the innovative pharmaceutical industry has helped pioneer new treatments, delivery mechanisms, and blood glucose monitoring devices.

These have reduced side effects and long-term complications and improved quality of life for people living with the condition.

IFPMA and our member companies also work with a range of stakeholders to ensure that people all over the world have access to the set of health products required for managing diabetes.

We collaborate with governments, civil society, heath providers, and private stakeholders to scale up successful existing diabetes initiatives and explore new collaborative models. In this regard, we are supporting multi-stakeholder efforts to create a healthy markets framework for insulin and to expand access to quality care for people living with diabetes in LMICs.

IFPMA is committed to the WHO Global Diabetes Compact, launched in April 2021.The Compact unites key players across all public and private sectors, including people living with diabetes, to shape a common agenda and drive action toward improved solutions for diabetes treatment and care in LMICs.

Around 4,724 cancer medicines are currently being developed through the innovative pharmaceutical industry’s continued R&D.

In the past 50 years, understanding of cancer has advanced considerably, leading to new and more effective treatments.

The innovative pharmaceutical industry is dedicated to improving global cancer management based on more effective partnerships and collaborative approaches to providing access to healthcare.

In collaboration with other stakeholders, the industry is

• Enabling innovation, including through AI and precision medicine
• Supporting holistic approaches to cancer control that encompass health promotion, prevention, screening, early detection, accurate and timely diagnosis, and quality treatment and follow-up
• Collaborating on new and innovative financing models for cancer care
• Improving care delivery, including through integrated care.

The pharmaceutical industry engages in multi-stakeholder partnerships to improve access to innovation for cancer control in LMICs.

These include: