Kate Kelland
Reuters
06/20/2010
The Access to Medicines Index (AMI) — released this week for the second time since its launch in 2008 — is produced by a Dutch-based foundation and backed by 22 institutional investors and fund managers, who together manage $3.1 trillion in assets.
It put Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline at the top of its list of 20 of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, ranked on the efforts to make sure medicines are made for, and reach, people in developing countries.
The index is designed to offer investors a way to compare drugmakers’ social responsibility records.
Behind GSK, which lead the field in improving access to drugs and vaccines, came the U.S. drugs giant Merck & Co., Switzerland’s Novartis, U.S.-based Gilead Sciences, and France’s Sanofi-Aventis.
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