Wim Leereveld

Wim Leereveld is CEO and Founder of the Access to Medicine Foundation, which publishes the Access to Medicine Index every two years. The Index ranks the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies on their policies and practices to improve access to medicine for people living in low-income and middle-income countries. Worldwide, two billion people have little or no access to affordable medicine. As an agent for change, the Index works by publically recognising the good performers in the industry, and triggering competition between pharmaceutical companies on their access-to-medicine efforts. The methodology for evaluating companies’ performances is based on conclusions drawn from a collective dialogue, coordinated by the Foundation, which includes governments, NGOs, investors and global health experts, as well as the companies themselves. As such, it sets out a clear path for the companies to follow in order to improve access to medicine for the people who need it most. Prior to establishing the Foundation in 2004, Wim was co-founder of PMSI and Walsh International, leading providers of information services to the healthcare industry. Once Walsh International had successfully been brought to the NASDAQ, Wim decided to change his focus and use his knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry to improve healthcare for people living in developing countries. He set up the Access to Medicine Foundation and began work on a tool that would trigger the pharmaceutical companies to do more for poor patients. For more than 15 years, Wim had worked closely with the industry, and had developed an understanding of what drives change there. He had learned that ‘naming and shaming’ pharmaceutical companies was actually counterproductive, and discouraged transparency. Instead, the best approach is to stimulate their built-in competitive spirit by publically recognising good performance. Wim had also learned that pharmaceutical companies sincerely wanted to do more – but they just didn’t know how. This was partly because there was a lack of clear direction from other stakeholders, who often had conflicting opinions as to what companies could and should be doing. In order to reveal the best direction for companies to take, Wim realised that his new Foundation needed to bring the different stakeholders in the access-to-medicine field together. After much consultation with industry watchers and experts in global health, the Foundation developed a framework for dialogue between the relevant groups. It then used the outcome of their discussions to build the Access to Medicine Index, which ranks the major pharmaceutical companies according to their efforts to make their products accessible in low-income and middle-income countries. Published every two years, the Index shows pharmaceutical companies how to step up their efforts. The first Access to Medicine Index was published in 2008. Since then, awareness of the Index has grown, and its findings are used increasingly widely to illustrate how the pharma industry approaches key access topics. In 2014, the Index was placed in the world’s top 3 most credible sustainability ratings in an independent survey of sustainability experts. The 2014 Access to Medicine Index was published in November 2014. The methodology review for the next Access to Medicine Index is currently underway.