The heads of 13 of the world's biggest drug companies, brought together by Bill Gates, one of the world's richest men, have agreed to donate more medicines and, unprecedentedly, to work together to find new ones in a bid to end many neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that kill and maim some of the poorest people on the planet...The biggest contribution of the pharmaceutical companies, including...GlaxoSmithKline,...Pfizer and Abbott and many others, is in drug donations. Those that already had donation programmes are extending them to 2020. Millions of tablets will now be distributed. Unusually, some of the companies have agreed to co-operate to try to develop badly needed new drugs. [also refers to Johnson & Johnson]