Public Pharma: A Step Towards Health For All

PHM Africa Regional Circle introduces it's Public Pharma campaign

What is Public Pharma?
Conceptualised by PHM, and emerging from a long history of public health and access to medicine activism, the concept of Public Pharma refers to state-owned infrastructure focused on the research, development, manufacturing, and/or distribution of pharmaceuticals and other health technologies – including those linked to traditional medicine systems.

In contrast to Big Pharma this understanding includes institutional arrangements where states - and by extension their people - retain genuine decision-making authority and can establish governance based on public health needs. It explicitly excludes arrangements where the state merely mitigates risks for private enterprises using public resources, such as Public- Private Partnerships.

The campaign calls for:
• dismantling the dominance of Big Pharma
• replacing it with publicly owned alternatives grounding medical
manufacturing in the principles of the Alma Ata Declaration, which supports scientifically sound, socially acceptable and affordable technology, and
• opposing the privatisation of public resources.

You can find PHM’s bold vision for Public Pharma outlined in a policy document here: