Client

The Accessibility Platform (AP), a multi-stakeholder platform, is focused on improving health supply chains in developing countries. AP was established by twelve leading pharmaceutical companies including Abbott, GSK, Eli Lilly, Leo Pharma, Merck, MSD, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Otsuka, Pfizer, Roche and Sanofi.

Opportunity

The Platform wished to launch its first major awareness-building event and bring together global and country leaders in health supply chains from the public and private sectors. This strategic event was designed to catalyze collaborations and align resources needed for optimal health impact through awareness-building, addressing first mile complexities, upstream supply chain issues and last mile capacity building. GD, in collaboration with AP’s member companies, conceptualized and organized the Platform’s high-profile event in May 2016 in concurrence with the 69th World Health Assembly in Geneva. The session, “Addressing Health Supply Chain and Delivery Challenges: Uniting Stakeholders for Optimal Impact,” brought together a wide range of influential actors to share perspectives and a variety of programmatic, financing and policy solutions in developing and emerging economies. The Platform’s partners welcomed leaders from the Tanzanian Ministry of Health, USAID, NORAD, Gavi, the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Interagency Supply Chain Group and the International Federation of the Red Cross Red Crescent (IFRC) to the event.The discussion was moderated by Dr. Prashant Yadav from the University of Michigan, one of the leading experts on health supply chains in developing countries.

Impact

• Delivered the Platform’s first major awareness-building event with key global health stakeholders
• Engaged over 100 participants from the public sector and pharmaceutical industry, notably those instrumental in financing and delivering health commodities to low- and middle-income countries
• Highlighted the importance of cross-sector collaborations to address supply chain challenges
• Emphasized the need to integrate multiple disease-specific supply chains as a crucial component of resilient and agile health systems in every country
• Identified opportunities for collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry in four health impact areas: improving evidence-based advocacy, building in-country capacity, reducing first mile complexities, as well as tackling last mile challenges

Additional Resources:

The Accessibility Platform, News June 2016