Highlights side event on health equity at World Local Production Forum

To what extent do satellite production sites of large pharmaceutical companies from the Global North contribute to health equity, sovereignty and self-reliance for low- and middle-income countries? Wemos convened a side event on this topic at the 2nd World Local Production Forum, which took place in The Hague from 6 to 8 November 2023.

Equitable access to health products

The forum was organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) together with the Dutch government to foster exchange and collaboration on regional manufacturing of health products, including medicines and vaccines. In current initiatives to strengthen regional production, satellite production sites of large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies play a central role. For our side event, we invited key public health experts to discuss whether these satellite production sites truly contribute to equitable access to health products.

Panel of experts

Charles Gore (executive director of the Medicines Patent Pool), Jens Pedersen (senior advisor for Africa CDC), Dr Marta Fernández Suárez (chief technology officer at FIND) and Dr Moses Mulumba (director general of Afya na Haki) participated in the panel discussion, which was moderated by Dr Ellen ‘t Hoen (director of Medicines Law & Policy).

Key takeaways from the panel discussion

• Satellite production sites may be a valid short-term solution.
• Satellite production sites are not seen as a long-term solution to achieve sovereignty and self-reliance for low- and middle-income countries.
• Without addressing intellectual property barriers, satellite production sites cannot achieve equitable access.
• Regulatory strengthening is required to allow satellite production sites to foster local manufacturing.
• Trust towards vaccines and governments must be restored for satellite production sites to achieve access.