Globally each year, millions of people suffer illness or lose their lives because the vaccines, medicines and diagnostic tests that they need are either unavailable or unaffordable – and this lack of access to medicine is acute in low- and middle-in- come countries (LMICs). While the COVID-19 pandemic laid this inequity bare, it also saw the pharmaceutical industry develop and bring new vaccines and treat- ments to market at unprecedented speed. As the world emerges from the worst of this crisis, pharmaceutical companies are now at an important juncture, where lessons learned from the pandemic can prove pivotal in finding solutions to bridge long-standing gaps in access to medicine in LMICs.