Singapore: Sanofi has been ranked third among 20 pharmaceutical companies on the 2012 Access to Medicine Index (ATM Index) created by the Access to Medicine Foundation, an international non-profit organization dedicated to improving access to medicine to societies in need.

The 20 companies that were featured in the index, in order of their decreasing ranks, include, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, Merck & Co, Gilead Sciences, Novo Nordisk, Novartis, Merck KGaA, Bayer, Roche, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbott Laboratories, Eli Lilly, Eisai, AstraZeneca, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Takeda, Daiichi Sankyo and Astellas Pharma. 

While speaking about the achivement of Sanofi, Mr Gilles Lhernould, senior vice president, corporate social responsibility, Sanofi. said that, "This third ranking on the 2012 Access to Medicine Index is a recognition of Sanofi's efforts to act with all our partners to protect health and raise the hopes of patients. The key challenge in the future will be to eliminate the north-south divide in access to health care. As a global healthcare leader, we are the right partner to achieve this goal."

The Access to Medicine Foundation particularly acknowledged the initiatives of Sanofi in the fields of multi-resistant bacterial infections, malaria, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases, as well as the renewal of its partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) to fight diseases like Buruli ulcer, human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), Chagas disease and leishmaniasis.

In its report, the Access to Medicine Foundation, creator of the ATM 2012 Index, highlighted that Sanofi has significantly improved its approach to access to medicine in several areas and it leads the field in the area of public policy. It has continued to invest in R&D, targeting relevant diseases, and has a broad range of molecules in its pipeline. The company has robust access management systems, inter and intra-country tiered pricing, works with local governments to improve capability advancement and has initiatives in both donations and sustainable philanthropy, with two single-drug donation programs.