Why UNITAID adopts a market-based approach

UNITAID works through market interventions to improve access to medicines, diagnostics, and preventive items used in HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The benefit of adopting market-based approaches is that all countries, not only those receiving direct UNITAID support, benefit from UNITAID’s market impact. For example, if UNITAID decreases prices, improves quality, and improves acceptability of products, all countries and buyers have access to these improved, more affordable products, meaning more people can be treated or diagnosed with better products for less money.

How UNITAID works in markets

UNITAID performs one, two, or three market functions, depending on the particular circumstances and characteristics of a given market. These roles include:

  • Market catalyst: identifying and facilitating adoption and uptake of new and superior health commodities;
  • Market creator: providing incentives for manufacturers to produce otherwise unattractive products with low market demand but substantial public health benefits; and
  • Market 'fixer': addressing market inefficiencies (e.g., grossly inaccurate demand forecast, excessive transaction costs, etc.) contributing to low access of quality assured medicines, diagnostics, and preventative items.

UNITAID's Market Impact Framework

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The starting point for any UNITAID intervention is a public health problem (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria) and insufficient access to commodities used to treat, diagnose, or prevent the problem.
UNITAID identifies market shortcomings (e.g., high prices, poor quality, inappropriate formulations, unavailability, etc.) that contribute to low commodity access and the reasons for these market shortcomings (e.g., lack of supplier competition, absence of incentives to develop critical but low profit products, etc.).
Through its partners, UNITAID develops and implements innovative market interventions to address the reasons for the market shortcomings.
Interventions are intended to yield short- term market impact that correct the market shortcomings (e.g., lower prices, better quality, improved formulation, increased availability, etc.), but also long term, sustainable market impact where manufacturers continue to invest & innovate and healthy competition drives markets towards public health goals.
The immediate public health impact of UNITAID interventions is an increased number of people with access to quality products. This increased coverage means more people live longer, healthier lives. Interventions are high value for money because UNITAID’s market impact extends to all countries, not just those receiving direct UNITAID support.

See a UNITAID intervention example:
Example

Landscape analyses

UNITAID's landscape analyses for medicines and diagnostics markets for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria guide priority setting for UNITAID and many other organizations.

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