At the Association for Accessible Medicines’ (AAM) annual conference today in Baltimore, a panel comprised of representatives from Teva Pharmaceuticals, The National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) and Direct Relief examined issues and solutions regarding pharmaceutical access for patients who are uninsured, under-insured or affected by disasters.
Over 1,000 industry leaders participated in the conference, GRx + Biosims: Engineering the Future of Generic + Biosimilar Medicines, with the goal of sharing relevant news, best practices and meaningful insights from the pharmaceutical industry.
“Generic chronic disease medicines are critically important for the health of uninsured and under-served patients, as well as those impacted by natural disasters or emergencies, and Direct Relief is deeply grateful for the donations it receives from generic manufacturers,” said Damon Taugher, Direct Relief’s director of US programs, who participated on today’s panel. “Support from generic pharmaceutical companies like Teva results in improved care for patients at Direct Relief’s safety-net partners in the U.S. and across a vast network of public hospitals and clinics globally.”
Joining Taugher on the panel were Amalia Adler-Waxman, VP, Social Impact & Responsibility, and Malvise A. Scott, Senior VP Partnership and Resource Development, National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC).
“Teva takes its commitment to continue to improve access to affordable quality medicines seriously,” said Alder-Waxman. “Our product donations are pivotal to this commitment and we accomplish this by donating viable and requested medicines to our medical relief partners that have been fully vetted, audited and qualified to properly handle, store, distribute and report on the humanitarian product donations that we provide.”
Teva Pharmaceuticals is the world’s leading generic pharmaceuticals company and has a long and impressive history of corporate social responsibility by providing both financial and prescription product support to its partners.
“Direct Relief has been Teva’s principal partner over the past decade in which our medical products have been jointly provided to improve care for the underserved in 86 countries, including in the US.” said Adler-Waxman. “This program also supports Teva’s contribution to addressing the rising burden of NCDs, where many of its donated products ensure access to those suffering from CVD, diabetes, respiratory diseases, cancer, pain, as well as antibiotics.”
Teva and Direct Relief have also worked together to advance best practices and innovation around improved care for Multiple Chronic Conditions patients and are developing tools to help safety-net providers in the US and internationally to better care for their patients with more than one chronic disease.
“NACHC is grateful for the significant commitment that Teva and Direct Relief have made to provide vital medicines to so many of our community health centers,” said Scott. “These donated medicines make a vital difference in restoring the health of millions of underserved American patients that have diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and respiratory illness and that lack prescription insurance or financial means.”
With a membership of over 1,400 health center member entities, NACHC affiliated health centers care for over 28 million uninsured or underinsured Americans with primary care services, as well as various specialty medical services depending on the individual clinic.
