Background: Cancer is a global public health problem, requiring efficient health system investments to deliver sustainable impact on population health. Access to medicines is a critical component of health systems, having a crucial role in delivering therapeutic benefits. Since 1977, the World Health Organization (WHO) has published a Model List of Essential Medicines (EML) that includes key health interventions for the prevention and control of conditions of public health relevance. Essential medicines are selected for inclusion in the EML based on the evidence of efficacy, safety, therapeutic value, and the potential to impact population health. With the rapid changes in the therapeutic landscape of cancer treatment with new medicine approvals, there is a critical need to select and prioritise specific cancer interventions based on their intrinsic value., Materials and Methods: The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has developed a decisional methodology based on a threshold with a minimum set of technical specifications and a consensus-based procedure for decisions to select candidate cancer medicines to be submitted to the WHO for consideration for the WHO EML., Results: ESMO recognises the WHO EML as an important reference guide for medicines that all countries should include in their national EMLs. Cancer medicines on the WHO EML are used in the treatment of the majority of cancers, and are recommended in the evidence-based ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines that medical oncologists use to treat patients. ESMO's submissions to the WHO EML in 2019 and 2021 and their respective outcomes are presented in the manuscript., Conclusion: Due to the rising costs associated with newly available therapies, structured, reproducible, and field-tested tools to evaluate the added clinical benefit from these therapies need to be implemented in pre-selecting potential candidate medicines to be included in the WHO EML. ESMO is proud to collaborate closely with WHO on this important global public health initiative., Competing Interests: Disclosure TA reports personal fees from CeCaVa, institutional grants and personal fees from Novartis, institutional grants from NeraCare, personal fees and travel grants from BMS, personal fees and travel grants from Pierre Fabre, institutional grants from Sanofi, institutional grants from SkylineDx and institutional grants from iFIT, outside the submitted work. GC has received personal fees from AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo; has received grants or contracts from Merck and AstraZeneca; has received personal fees as advisory board member for AstraZeneca, BMS; Ellipsis, Merck; Lilly, Pfizer, Roche, Veracyte; has received institutional research grant from Merck; has received institutional funding for phase I studies from Astellas, AstraZeneca, BMS, Blueprint Medicine, Daiichi Sankyo, Kymab, Novartis, Philogen, Roche, Sanofi; has received consulting fees from Roche, BMS, Novartis, Lilly, Pfizer, Seagen, AstraZeneca, Ellipsis, Gilead, Merck, Celcuity, Sanofi, Exact Sciences, and Daiichi Sankyo; has received payment or honoraria for presentations, lectures, speaker bureaus, manuscript writing, or educational events from AstraZeneca, Novartis, Lilly, Pfizer, Seagen, Roche and Daiichi Sankyo; has received support for attending meetings or travel from AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo; has participated on a data safety monitoring board or advisory board for Roche, BMS, Novartis, Lilly, Pfizer, Seagen, Ellipsis, Gilead, Merck, Celcuity, AstraZeneca, and Daiichi Sankyo; has an advisory role and is Member of the Scientific Council of Europa Donna, is an Officer of the Consiglio Superiore di Sanità, Italian National Health Council as Advisor for Ministry of Health, and has an advisory role in Fondazione Beretta Cancer Research Foundation. RG reports being an invited speaker from Apogen, Lilly, Mylan, Novartis, Roche, Pfizer, Medicines for Europe, Mabxience and the European Access Academy (all with no fee received); she received personal fees from AstraZeneca and travel grants form Roche; she reports an advisory role for UICC ATOM Medicines (January 2023); she reports being a full member of the Cancer Drug Development Forum (CDDF); she is co-chair and member of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) Healthcare Professional Working Party (HCPWP) and a member of the EMA Cancer Medicines Forum; she serves as expert for the evaluation of proposals submitted to Horizon Europe Health Cluster-for the Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). DT reports being a member of the EMA Healthcare Professional Working Party (HCPWP), a member of the WHO SAGE IVD and a member of the WHO EML Cancer Medicines Working Group. GB, MG, NJL and GP are full-time employees of ESMO. All the other authors have declared no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)