Banco Farmacéutico, OAFI and AECOSAR join forces to work towards the eradication of pharmaceutical poverty in patients with osteoarthritis and/or osteoporosis

The Osteoarthritis Foundation International (OAFI), the Spanish Osteoporosis Association (AECOSAR) and the Banco Farmacéutico, together with the Observatorio de la Pobreza Farmacéutica, signed an agreement last January establishing a joint working framework to curb pharmaceutical poverty in patients with osteoarthritis and/or osteoporosis.

OAFI is the world’s first and only non-profit foundation exclusively for people with osteoarthritis. Since 2016, it has been leading the fight against osteoarthritis by promoting education, prevention, treatment and research into everything related to joint health and offering solutions to people suffering from this disease.

On the other hand, AECOSAR is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to promote the rights and duties of people affected by osteoporosis and osteoarthritis and Spanish citizens in health matters; collaborating with national, regional and local administrations; scientific societies, other institutions and organisations that defend the interests of patients.

The Asociación Banco Farmacéutico is an NGO founded in 2007 with the aim of promoting the social inclusion of people who suffer inequality in access to medicines for economic reasons, favouring their health. It bases its activity on researching and measuring pharmaceutical poverty through the Observatorio de la Pobreza Farmacéutica; on raising public awareness of this reality, which affects more than 2 million Spaniards; and on assisting specific people who suffer from it, through various projects implemented, for the moment, in Catalonia, Aragon and Madrid.

Jordi Bosch, Director of Institutional Relations of Banco Farmacéutico and Director of the Observatorio de la Pobreza Farmacéutica, and Dr. Josep Vergés, CEO and Founder of OAFI, met to sign an agreement that includes activities such as the study of patients with osteoarthritis and/or osteoporosis in a situation of pharmaceutical poverty and the dissemination of its results and the development of actions, aimed at this target, with which to improve the quality of these patients.

In the words of Dr. Vergés “pharmaceutical poverty is, unfortunately, a frequent problem for patients with osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. Therefore, joining forces is vital to be able to put an end to such a harmful problem for people suffering from these diseases”.

For his part, Jordi Bosch stated that “within our relationship strategy, a collaborative culture is fundamental, and even more so between organisations that share the same objective. To measure, make visible and attend to pharmaceutical poverty in its different forms requires sharing efforts to multiply the efficiency of our actions”.

This union represents a further step in the work of these three organisations to defend the rights of patients to full access to the treatments necessary for the control and cure of their disease.