Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) has announced a new ten-year strategy aimed at advancing access to medicines in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
The strategy, Accessibility, Sustainability, Patient-centric, Impact, Responsibility and Equity (ASPIRE), supports BMS’ commitment to reach more than 200,000 patients in LMICs by 2033, the company said.
ASPIRE involves several tailored strategies to increase the affordability and availability of BMS’ medicines in LMICs, including ensuring that 100% of its marketed products are supported by access plans.
The company has also introduced local brands of many of its medicines to address affordability issues, expand access and help reduce the time lag between availability in higher-income countries and lower-income countries.
In areas where BMS does not have a commercial presence, it is making medicines available through the Direct Import and the Direct-to-Institution (DTI) pathways. The company said it is providing access to 12 medicines in more than 80 LMICs through the Direct Import pathway, using a tiered pricing structure.
The DTI pathway, which improves access to BMS’ innovative medicines to multiple patients through collaboration with local institutions, will initially see efforts focused on five LMICs in East Africa, Pakistan and West Africa in 2025, with the goal of scaling to over 15 LMICs by 2026.
The company has also collaborated with the Access to Oncology Medicines (ATOM) Coalition, which it joined as a founding partner in 2022. Now, working with the ATOM Coalition and its partners, BMS will make Opdivo (nivolumab) available via an access model in countries including Pakistan, Rwanda and Zambia while working to develop an integrated pathway that can expand access in multiple LMICs by 2026.
Opdivo is currently approved in more than 65 countries, including the US and EU, for a range of indications such as kidney, lung and gastric cancers.
Christopher Boerner, board chair and chief executive officer at BMS, commented: “Access to potentially life-saving innovative medicines is very limited in some parts of the world, leaving patients with few treatment options for serious diseases like cancer… Our ASPIRE strategy is an important step towards accelerating and expanding patient access to these much-needed treatments.”