Abstract

Pharmaceutical corporations are important actors that canhave great influence on access to medicines. Although, theirfirst and primary goal is to achieve as much profit as possible,the perspective on the role that companies should play insociety has changed. In this context, an importantdevelopment is the concept of corporate social responsibility. Within their respective spheres of profit-driven activityand influence, pharmaceutical companies increasingly takeinto account human rights. They have developed internalcodes of conduct and signed several international guidelinesand standards. In this paper, the activities of threepharmaceutical companies towards accessibility andavailability of AIDS medicines have been explored throughanalysing their websites and reports. It shows to what extentthese pharmaceutical companies take into account humanrights and whether they comply with it through corporatesocial responsibility