This is a great move by Glaxo. I interned a drug company a couple years ago, and you could tell there was real effort to make sure those could not afford the d

This is a great move by Glaxo. I interned a drug company a couple years ago, and you could tell there was real effort to make sure those could not afford the drugs, but needed them, could still avail their benefits. There were programs to provide drugs at free or reduced costs, and real patients were frequently brought to the company's headquarters to talk to scientists & executives about the diseases they faced, and how they faced them. Moves like this on Glaxo's part can do a lot to ease the burden of disease. There are two problems here: 1) Affordability of drugs. The onus here is on the drug companies to be good citizens, follow Glaxo's lead, and go even further. It makes good sense for drug companies to give back in this way, like Google's support of many open-source initiatives. 2) Lack of treatment for third-world diseases. This is a much bigger problem that will require outside forces, like private foundations or government. Big drug companies are making drugs for lucrative diseases like cancer, but people in poor countries are dying of AIDS, diarrhea, or malaria, before they even have a chance of getting cancer. There's not any monetary incentive for research to go into solving these problems in poor countries.