UN High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response: Panel 2
On 25 September 2026 in New York City, IFPMA Director General David Reddy participated in an official panel at the UN High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response.
Panel 2: Equitable access through sustainability and predictability: capacities and financing for strengthened pandemic prevention, preparedness and response
Honorable co-chairs, excellencies, and distinguished delegates. It’s a pleasure to be here today.
A number of key enablers will strengthen equitable access to innovative countermeasures.
The first is sustaining an innovation ecosystem. Decades of R&D investment enabled the first Covid vaccine to be registered within 326 days of isolation of the sequence, and similar long-term investments will be needed moving forward, particularly in areas like platform technologies, development of new antivirals, and to enhance pandemic influenza preparedness.
We need to maintain the conditions that encourage long term investment toward that innovation. Intellectual property is a critical enabler of innovation. It’s the foundation for private sector investment, for voluntary licensing including technology transfer, and for manufacturing partnerships. The pharmaceutical industry supports technology transfer under voluntary and mutually agreed terms and in line with international obligations.
Rapid access to pathogens and scientific data will also be key to the 100 Days Mission. I’d like to reflect on the ongoing Ebola Bundibugyo virus outbreak. Rapid access to pathogens and sequence information allowed companies to begin working immediately in partnership on diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines, and that work is ongoing today.
Second, we must institutionalize regulatory reliance and harmonization. This recognizes that streamlined regulatory reliance-based approaches can reduce duplication, accelerate approvals, and that this ensures more timely and equitable access to safe and effective medical countermeasures.
Third, we must invest in resilient healthcare systems today. Investment in primary health care delivery and routine immunization will help ensure the systems are in place to deliver pandemic measures and vaccines to people that need them during a crisis. It improves the underlying health of populations, making them more resilient to pandemic pathogens. And it increases public confidence and will help establish and sustain geographically diversified manufacturing.
Strengthening manufacturing readiness and creating resilient supply chains is also critical. Access to primary health care, including vaccination, can expand and establish diversified manufacturing. This must be done in a way that doesn’t fragment or duplicate manufacturing, to the point where economies of scale diminish and costs increase.
Governments should remove trade barriers and export restrictions during health emergencies. This is critical because most of us operate global supply chains and create conditions that allow manufacturers to scale rapidly during times of crisis.
Finally, donors, development banks, and global health initiatives should work with countries and with the private sector to provide predictable demand signals, advanced procurement mechanisms, and financing arrangements that can be activated rapidly during pandemic health emergencies, hence a focus on day zero financing.
The recording of this intervention is available on UN Web TV.
About IFPMA
IFPMA represents the innovative pharmaceutical industry at the international level, engaging in official relations with the United Nations and multilateral organizations. Our vision is to ensure that scientific progress translates into the next generation of medicines and vaccines that deliver a healthier future for people everywhere.
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To achieve this, we act as a trusted partner, bringing our members' expertise to champion pharmaceutical innovation, drive policy that supports the research, development, and delivery of health technologies, and create sustainable solutions that advance global health.
