Africa: Breakthrough Promises Improved Access to TB Treatment Across Africa. A pharmaceutical company in the United States has made a major move to pave the way for more people in Africa to have access to treatment options for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
The announcement made by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has been hailed as a “huge success” by the humanitarian medical care NGO known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
This success is a direct outcome of campaigns conducted by TB activists, members of civil society, and nations that “prioritis[e] public health over corporations’ interests.” In addition, a South African advocate for more affordable medical care has urged other pharmaceutical businesses to follow the lead set by Johnson & Johnson.
On September 29, Johnson & Johnson announced that it would no longer enforce patents for the medicine bedaquiline, which it sells under SIRTURO, in 134 countries in the low-income or middle-income category. Because of this announcement, firms that make generic copies of the medicine can now produce such versions at reduced prices without worrying that they will be sued for doing so.
On the basis that they spend significant sums of money researching and developing medicines, multinational pharmaceutical corporations have, for a very long time, defended their exclusive rights to produce life-saving treatments at prices that they determine. This defense is based on the fact that they set the pricing at which they manufacture the drugs. In the statement that J&J made, the company stated that bedaquiline was launched in 2012 “after years of focused investments.”
J&J added that: “Today, thanks to years of investments, collaboration, and responsible use of our intellectual property, bedaquiline is the backbone of the World Health Organization-recommended treatment guidelines for drug-resistant TB, and three out of every four MDR-TB patients on treatment are receiving a bedaquiline-containing regimen.”
However, most people living in countries not among the world’s most economically developed countries cannot pay the prices of the pharmaceuticals that Western multinational corporations create.
Regarding bedaquiline, that circumstance is now going to undergo a transition. According to Christophe Perrin, a TB advocacy pharmacist with MSF, J&J’s decision ultimately clears the way “for unfettered access to affordable generic versions of bedaquiline for all people living with drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) who need the drug in low- and middle-income countries.” Bedaquiline is a medication that is used to treat tuberculosis. This pertains to every African nation.
Fatima Hassan, director of South Africa’s Health Justice Initiative, welcomed the move and stated it was a long time. She added, “We now call on all pharmaceutical companies with secondary patents on TB drugs to follow J&J and drop their secondary patents now.”
She stated that pharma firms defending their patents and maintaining the pricing levels they set “has no place in public health.”
MSF’s Christophe Perrin said that the past ten weeks have seen “a sea change in TB,” including Johnson & Johnson “backing down” on pricing and patents, other companies reducing the price of TB testing, and a declaration by governments at the United Nations that they will scale up efforts to diagnose and treat TB patients. Perrin said that this “sea change” includes all of these things.
“We need all newer TB innovations to be as affordable as absolutely possible,” said Perrin. “This will allow governments to scale up prevention, testing, and treatment to beat back this curable disease that continues to kill 1.6 million people yearly.” People who have tuberculosis cannot, quite literally, afford to wait any longer.
