About Us

QUAMED is a non-profit association whose objective is to contribute to the improvement of access to quality medicines.

The global pharmaceutical market is characterized by the coexistence of varied quality standards: where patients in rich, strictly regulated countries can generally rely on the efficiency, safety and intrinsic quality of the medicines available to them, a large majority of people in resource-limited countries are at risk of receiving or buying poor quality pharmaceuticals. This difference is due to many reasons, among which we can mention :

– lack of resources from regulatory authorities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)
– the growing complexity and globalization of the pharmaceutical market
– the increasing pressure on prices to the detriment of a clear definition of the required quality standards
– limited awareness of the problem among key stakeholders, including some of the largest donors
– the lack of public and transparent information about the quality of medicines
– and finally the lack of political will at national and international level.

Although the problem posed by falsified medicines is the subject of a growing number of global initiatives, that of substandard drugs – the extent of which is very worrying in the LMICs – remains insufficiently taken into account. Substandard drugs, however, have at least as negative an impact on the health of vulnerable populations as falsified drugs.