The PharmAccess Group, of which PharmAccess Foundation is part of, is a non-profit organization and seeks to make quality healthcare accessible in Africa, contributing to healthier populations and social and economic development. By making use of public-private partnerships, they leverage donor contributions, which they believe will pave the way for private investments. Currently they are active in five countries: Tanzania, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria and Ghana.
PharmAccess was founded in 2001 by HIV/AIDS researcher Prof. Joep Lange. He took an important first step for the organization by distributing life-saving medicines against HIV/AIDS in Africa in cooperation with multinationals. In 2007, PharmAccess was one of two organizations that won a competition for a World Bank funding partnership.
Other leading individuals in the organization are Onno Schellekens, MsC, the managing director of the Investment Fund for Health in Africa, and Professor Tobias Rinke de Wit of the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development.
All of the activities are co-funded by the Health Insurance Fund (HIF). In October 2006, the Health Insurance Fund signed a contract with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to finance programs that provide access to affordable and quality healthcare among low income populations in sub-Saharan Africa through the introduction of financing mechanisms (including health insurance) and the improvement of healthcare quality.
Prof. Joep Lange of the Academic Medical Center (AMC) initiated PharmAccess in 2001, with support from the Dutch Aids Fonds, to bring life-saving antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS treatment to Africa. Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was introduced in the developed world in the mid-nineties and immediately led to dramatic reductions in AIDS-related morbidity and mortality. In Africa, for the great majority of the population, adults and children, treatment was not available and many of the HIV/AIDS patients died of the disease.