A/HRC/29/44 particularly when States lacked appropriate national policies, access to affordable and quality generic medicines and/or financial resources. New, effective treatment for hepatitis C was largely inaccessible to many patients owing to prohibitive costs. UNITAID intervened by providing funding to organizations working to demonstrate the impact, costeffectiveness and utility of new treatment and diagnostic tools and to develop the evidence needed to inform health policy and normative guidance. It also helped to improve the affordability of new commodities, often by leveraging its purchasing power to negotiate with manufacturers for the supply of quality-assured health products at lower prices or by enabling generic, low-cost production of medicines. 56. Hans Rietveld, Director, Market Access and Capacity-Building, Malaria Initiative, Novartis Pharma AG, introduced the Novartis Malaria Initiative. The latter had been involved in providing low-cost, life-saving treatment for malaria patients, a disease which had been taking the life of one child every 60 seconds for the past 15 years. It pursued multiple strategies to combat malaria including research and development of new treatment options, capacity-building, improving access and provision of treatment. Since 2001, the Initiative had delivered more than 700 million treatments without profit to 65 malaria endemic countries. It had developed paediatric tablets that were dissolvable in liquid for babies and children and an improved formulation for adults. The Power of One campaign treated one child for every dollar raised. Its partnership with the fund-raising organization Malaria No More had rallied public support and funds for 3 million malaria treatments in Zambia. The Initiative sought simple and innovative solutions to complex problems. For example, it had utilized mobile phones to monitor drug supplies in Africa and head off stock-outs, and published and distributed education materials on malaria prevention and treatment. However, much remained to be done including on development of new treatment for drug-resistant malaria and on strengthening health systems. 57. During the interactive dialogue, the following took the floor: representatives of Brazil, Indonesia, the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care, New Generation Ishaka, Safe Observer International, Rencontre Africaine pour la défense des droits de l’homme, Third World Network, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines; Drs. Sengupta, Bermudez, Schiavon and Zhang; Ms. Forman. Many speakers called for a rights-based health paradigm to replace market-oriented solutions, and related actions from the Human Rights Council. They recommended increasing attention to the medical needs of children, corporate responsibility, equitable access to medicines, and reduction of regulatory barriers to access, including TRIPs and TRIPs-plus provisions, research and development of treatments for neglected tropical diseases, access to pain medication, and the use of tariffs to safeguard local manufacturing capacity. Several speakers called on States to promote access without discrimination, to put people first, and to refrain from exerting political pressure to increase patent protections at the expense of access to medicines. They called on the Secretariat to issue strong recommendations on intellectual property rights, regulatory measures, and equal access to health care and sexual and reproductive health. Reiterating that access to medicines was a matter of life and death, they demanded that States and the private sector take immediate action to remove barriers to access to medicines. 58. In response, Mr. Rietveld clarified that he spoke for the Novartis Malaria Initiative, and not Novartis as a whole. The Initiative worked because the non-profit business model and the scale of the problem had allowed Novartis and partners to combine their approaches into a sustainable effort to promote access to life-saving medicines. Ms. Ramoul urged governments, health-care professionals, activists and industry to avoid finger-pointing and instead collaborate to promote access to medicines. Mr. de Felice explained the methodology of the Access to Medicine Index and suggested additional research into neglected tropical diseases. He supported initiatives to promote sharing and enhanced access to intellectual property like the Medicines Patent Pool. Citing positive impacts of the 17