Making partnerships work for health, focusing on low-income countries

Wolfgang Plischke Welcome address
at proving the efficacy of a shorter
course of therapy. If the trials are successful,
the current treatment period
of six months could be reduced by a
third through a combination therapy
using our active substance Moxifloxacin.
Such public private <strong>partnerships</strong> in the
field of drug development, as briefly
outlined here, represent quite a new
organizational <strong>for</strong>m.
Bayer is convinced that the pharmaceutical
industry has a central role to
play in finding the solutions <strong>for</strong> the
most pressing global challenges in
<strong>health</strong> care. As a research-based pharmaceutical
company, we have a lot to
offer. We regard our discovery and development
of innovative medicaments
as a highly worthwhile task. Bayer‘s
credo is „science <strong>for</strong> a better life“. As a
<strong>health</strong> care company, we invest in creating
innovations and products that
are used by patients the world over to
improve their life quality. But that is
not all we also have extensive experience
and expertise in logistics and demand
planning, as well as in the battle
against counterfeited drugs.
In that context, I would like to make
a request. I would like to encourage
all the governments in developing
and newly industrialized countries, as
well as the local politicians and experts
committed to improving <strong>health</strong>
in these countries, to include us more
in their <strong>health</strong> programmes in future.
Naturally, not because we believe that
we alone have the key to resolving the
challenges in the <strong>health</strong> sector. Quite
the contrary! We are convinced that
the Herculean task involved in „<strong>health</strong>
as a human right“ can only be tackled
and resolved by cooperation between
state, non-governmental and private
actors.
Companies also need to enter into a dialogue
with each other. The objective
here cannot be to protect one‘s own interests,
which every company rightly
has and must have in their own operative
areas. Instead, such a dialogue is
motivated by moral commitment and
the objective of how we can best combine
our <strong>for</strong>ces to help.
For that reason, I am very pleased to
have been asked to open this conference
today. This is the first time the
conference has been held in this <strong>for</strong>m,
bringing you together to Germany, as
the leading experts, to discuss this
crucial question: What can we do to
ensure <strong>health</strong> sector <strong>partnerships</strong> <strong>work</strong>
effectively? I am very interested to see
what results this conference brings
and I am sure we can all look <strong>for</strong>ward
to fruitful discussions and debates.
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