Enabling Equity
in Global Health

In support of Thermo Fisher’s Global Health Equity (GHE) business—whose mission is to prioritize scientific innovation in service of the health and well-being of everyone, everywhere—we are committed to providing high quality molecular (genetic and genomic) testing solutions that address the unmet needs present in low- and middle-income countries, where health disparities are often most pronounced. We actualize this commitment by developing and supporting products and services globally that are affordable and accessible, designed to meet these customers’ unique needs, meeting them where they are, all in support of helping improve health outcomes and care standards for everyone, everywhere.

Global Health Equity Program pillars

We will work across these foundational elements of the GHE program to innovate solutions that meet our customers’ needs and support achievement of equity in global health.

Countries that are eligible for Global Health Equity (GHE) support are highlighted in red.

Global health equity solutions

Helping in the global fight to end HIV

Even with the remarkable progress made since 2010 in the global fight to end the HIV epidemic, we are still witnessing more than 1.5 M new HIV infections per year globally. 

Furthermore, the progress made has not been uniform everywhere—of the 38 M adults and children living with HIV in 2020, the vast majority are found in low- and middle-income countries, with the majority of these found in eastern and southern Africa.  

Over the last ten years, we have seen that with resource availability and access to care, including testing and treatment, it is possible to significantly impact HIV transmission and AIDS death. Today’s challenge is to make sure that these resources and this access to care is available to everyone, everywhere.

This is the priority of the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (also known as UNAIDS), which is leading and inspiring the world to achieve its vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination, and zero AIDS-related deaths.  They have established aggressive goals to reduce global disparities in treatment and care by 2030 and reduce the number of newly diagnosed HIV infections by almost 90%. 

Thermo Fisher Scientific aims to help achieve these global health goals through its Global Health Equity program by making advanced HIV drug resistance testing solutions available and affordable to low- to middle-income countries which carry the greatest burden of this disease.

Accessible HIV drug resistance testing to inform national- and individual-level therapeutic treatment strategies

One of the problems with the HIV virus is that it mutates very rapidly, potentially rendering available antiretroviral therapies ineffective in suppressing the disease. Up to 10% of adults starting HIV treatment experience drug resistance to certain classes of drugs and nearly 50% of infants born to mothers with HIV experience resistance to at least one class of drug. HIV even shows development of drug resistance to the newer, highly effective integrase class of drugs. 

With the continued emergence of drug resistant mutations to the three main antiretroviral drug classes, genotyping of HIV-1 becomes an important tool in the global effort to help end the HIV epidemic. Powerful for informing both population-level genetic and epidemiologic public health surveillance testing programs and individual-level monitoring of drug resistance, equitable access to these genotyping tools is key to removing historical barriers. Thermo Fisher Scientific, working in concert with its partners, is striving to improve global HIV drug testing programs through improved global access, equitable pricing, capacity building, and capability training.

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