United Nations Secretary General Mr. Ban Ki Moon, and UN agencies WHO, UNAIDS, UNICEF and UNDP met in New York in October with seventeen of the world’s research based and generic pharmaceutical and diagnostical companies to review progress on strengthening individual and collective efforts to expand access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services in low- and middle-income countries.

During the meeting participants agreed that increasing access to vaccines, diagnostics and medicines is essential, and reiterated their support for the flexibilities in the WTO TRIPS agreement, the Doha declaration and related WTO decisions.

Other agreements include further investment in research and development of new HIV related medicines adapted to resource limited settings to be used safely in children, adolescents, adults and pregnant women; as well as investment in developing reliable and affordable technologies to diagnose HIV and TB (among PLHIV) and to monitor the efficacy of treatment. The UN system committed amongst other things to convene in-depth technical consultations among HIV experts and between the UN and the companies on pediatric formulations and second and third line regimens for adults.

Dr. Kevin Moody, International Coordinator and CEO of GNP+, during the high level dialogue meeting held a speech emphasizing the need for affordable and easy to use paediatric formulations and second line treatment. Dr. Moody also called attention to the importance of new prevention technologies and reiterated the crucial role the diagnostical companies have following the Swiss statement to make available affordable and easy to use viral load tests.

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