Our ambition
Hundreds of millions of people around the world live with unmet health needs. This disparity became even clearer during the COVID-19 pandemic, where persistent geographical health inequalities were further highlighted. Using our scientific expertise, our partnerships, and the knowledge we’ve gained from decades of work to improve health globally, we want to help change this.
Our commitment to improving our global health impact through R&D for infectious diseases and access to medicines and vaccines has been recognised in the Access to Medicines Index, where we have ranked number one for the last seven years - every year since its inception.
Our ambition is contingent on reaching people all around the globe with the products they need to thrive and prosper, and by helping the world to better prepare for emerging health security threats and challenges.
How we’re getting Ahead Together on global health
We’re continuing to build on our long heritage of work to get ahead of priority infectious diseases that disproportionately impact people in lower income countries, including malaria*, tuberculosis and HIV. We do this by combining our world-leading global health R&D pipeline and our proven track record of delivering transformative medicines and vaccines, which includes the world’s first approved vaccine against a parasite.
To ensure our innovations reach the people who need them, we work with partners such as WHO, Gavi, CEPI, European Commission, Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust and Save the Children. These partnerships help us to expand sustainable access and strengthen health systems. Most importantly, every aspect of our global health work is driven by local needs and guided by local knowledge*.
Preparing for future health challenges
We are using our scientific know-how and partnerships to help the world better prepare for future health challenges, such as disease outbreaks with pandemic potential and antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Without action on antimicrobial resistance 10 million people could die from drug-resistant infections every year by 2050. That’s why we have 28 R&D projects targeting priority pathogens, including pathogens deemed ‘critical’ and ‘urgent’ by WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We’re also working with governments, NGOs and other stakeholders to bolster future pandemic responses, strengthen efforts to get ahead of AMR and build more resilient health systems able to cope with health security challenges.
*Our RTS,S/AS01e malaria vaccine is the first and only vaccine shown in long-term clinical trials to reduce malaria in children.
*We successfully developed a new monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19 with our partners Vir Biotechnology. This medicine proved to be effective against multiple variants, including Omicron, and has helped many countries to reduce the health impact of the pandemic.”
