Editor - Doctors Without Borders tells us that pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson is risking people's lives by not allowing HIV patients to participate in the Medicines Patent Pool. That pool is set up to help lower prices of drugs and allow access to important medicines in the prevention of aids, especially for the poor in the develooping world, as the volunteer organization asks for public pressure on this matter.
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[/caption]Johnson & Johnson holds patents on three key new HIV drugs. Doctors Without Borders declare these drugs are needed badly by patients in the developing world, and so far the company has refused to license these patents to the Medicines Patent Pool that has been set up to increase access to affordable versions of HIV drugs.
“High prices mean patients in poor countries continue to be relegated to second-class care, with no choice but to take older, more toxic drugs we would no longer use in the U.S., and with almost no treatment options when the virus becomes resistant to the limited number of drugs available,” said Sophie Delaunay, executive director of MSF-USA. “By putting its HIV drug patents in the pool, Johnson & Johnson has a unique opportunity to transform this situation and save lives worldwide. Instead, it has chosen to turn its back on these patients.”
Johnson & Johnson holds very important patents on HIV medicines rilpivirine, darunavir, and etravirine. Rilpivirine is a promising antiretroviral (ARV) under development for use in first-line treatment regimens. Darunavir and etravirine are important for patients who have developed resistance to their existing treatment.
Johnson has declared it has reduced pricing, but the organization tells us the cost of these drugs is prohibitive; darunavir is priced at $1,095 per patient per year, and etravirine at $913 per patient per year in the world’s least-developed countries, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa. Many developing countries have to pay even higher prices.
In December 2010, the National Institutes of Health, which holds the intellectual property rights for a manufacturing process for darunavir, put its patent for the AIDS drug in the patent pool. Johnson & Johnson holds the drug’s remaining patents. The company, however, is reported to be blocking other companies from manufacturing and making darunavir available at prices affordable for patients in the developing world.
There are now more than six million people receiving lifesaving ARV treatment worldwide. Many of these people are in Africa and countries that have many people unable to afford high-priced drugs.
“We have patients who have no other treatment options other than Johnson & Johnson’s darunavir, which is so expensive that the South African government cannot afford it,” said Dr. Gilles van Cutsem, medical coordinator for MSF programs in South Africa and Lesotho. “MSF is now paying for these drugs, but this is just the beginning of the problem. Ten years after we put the first patients on antiretroviral treatment, we now have patients in our clinics who have become resistant to drugs available at affordable prices. We’ll soon be back in a situation where we’ll have to say there are drugs in the private sector, or in rich countries, that could treat you, but we cannot afford them.”
