Most of us love to talk about politics and politicians. We are always eager to know which politician wants to lead change within his party, who is making tall claims about improving the lives of people living in Pakistan overnight or even who wants to be re-married. However, we are unaware that we are constantly ignoring serious issues that affect us all. It is a fact that everyone wants to live a healthy life and not be crippled by the health care costs. Imagine a situation when, God forbid, one of your family members becomes ill and you do not have money to purchase their medicines. Imagine being unable to afford their medical expenses due to high prices of drugs such as Sovaldi tablets (used for Hepatitis C) that are being sold at Rs 1142 PER TABLET. What alternatives would you have? Obviously at first you would go to your close relatives and friends to borrow some money but ultimately you would be left with no option except looking at the sky with tears in your eyes. Your pocket will be empty and you would not be in a position to do anything to save your family member. Now just think about the pharmaceutical companies for a moment. Sometimes they are so cruel that overnight they increase the price of an essential drug multiple times for no reasons except for profit but suggesting that their cost of production has increased. If we look back to the year 2013, we can see how much the pharmaceutical sector in Pakistan made profit by increasing the prices of life-saving drugs more than twice when the government reduced the release of ephedrine quota, an essential component of the life-saving drugs, to the medicine companies. All of the sudden the prices of the prominent life-saving drugs increased including Avil injection, Sosegon injection, Stilnox tablets, Panadol plain, Panadol CF tablets, Nuberol Forte, Optalidon, Trisil, Sancos syrup, Benatuss, Xaltide inhaler for asthma, Salbo inhaler and Ativan. The monopoly of the pharmaceutical sector is just one piece of the puzzle. For example, in the US alone 1 in 3 drugs of therapeutic value are developed in universities by researchers and students using the tax-payer funding. It is surprising then to learn that every 7 out of 10 medicines being sold by pharmaceutical companies were not actually produced by those companies. While maintaining that they have a high cost of production, the pharmaceutical companies increase the prices of their products. Resultantly, the day by day increasing health costs in developing countries have made access to treatment totally dependent upon the availability of those medicines that are reasonably priced. Medicines should not be a luxury but according to an estimate, one-third of the total population of the world does not have access to essential medicines. Ten million people in the world die per annum due to lack of access to affordable medicines. So, who should be blamed for this tragic reality? The question is a bit tricky but it is undeniable that the current biomedical Research and Development (R&D) system is one of the main factors behind this crisis. Most of the developing countries do not bother to invest their money in biomedical R&D. Resultantly, most of the biomedical research is financed by big medicine companies and the pharmaceutical sector. Soon after a formula for a life-saving drug is devised, that medical company registers its patent rights and becomes the sole producer of that medicine. Due to these patent rights, the inventor of that medicine cannot sell its formula to any other company and hence, that essential medicine becomes out of the reach of the poor and the least able to pay. It is a fact that the generic drugs can play a pivotal role in lowering the prices of the essential medicines in market. Generic drugs are copies of brand-name drugs that have exactly the same dosage and the side effects as the original drug. But in order to maintain their monopoly and to earn heavy profits, the pharmaceutical companies do not allow the generic medicines to enter the market and the patent rights are their biggest weapons in this regard. In short, our current biomedical R&D system of medicines is just favoring profit over people. We have to demand change and for this change we have to raise our voices. A World Health Organization (WHO) is the directing authority for health within the United Nations (UN) system that is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters. WHO’s Executive Board meeting in March 2016 is going to decide whether to move forward with negotiations regarding a new R&D agreement or not and if they decide to proceed with negotiations, a global R&D agreement will be discussed at the upcoming 69th World Health Assembly (the highest level global health policy-setting annual assembly held at the WHO) in May 2016. Trust me! A new R&D of medicines can change the lives of millions of people in the world.