Advocates demand that Johnson & Johnson commit to non-enforcement of secondary patent on bedaquiline so that access to generic, quality-assured bedaquiline is guaranteed after the expiry of the primary patent on 18 July 2023.
Photo credit: MSF/Alexandra SadokovaFollowing years of advocacy, including the most recent 11 July 2023 open letter to Johnson & Johnson (J&J), and intense public pressure on J&J by journalist John Green via social media, last week, the Stop TB Partnership Global Drug Facility (GDF) and J&J announced an agreement that will enable GDF to sell generic bedaquiline to a majority of low- and middle-income countries. However, under the agreement, the secondary patents will remain in place and certain countries with high burdens of TB, multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), and TB/HIV remain excluded from accessing generic bedaquiline. Treatment Action Group, Médecins Sans Frontières and Partners in Health issued statements in response to the agreement.
Advocates, therefore, continue to call on J&J to publicly commit to secondary patent non-enforcement and withdrawal to solve the remaining issues blocking access to generic bedaquiline in countries that are left out of the agreement with GDF, including South Africa and other countries unable to procure TB medicines through GDF due to country-specific rules, the 10 EECA countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine), and China, and urge countries excluded from the agreement to consider issuing compulsory licenses to enable urgent access to lower-priced generic bedaquiline.
You can add to the social media pressure mounted by John Green @sportswithjohn @johngreen on Twitter by posting with the hashtag #PatientsNotPatents and tagging @JNJNews or @JNJGlobalHealth, and demanding that J&J release the secondary patents and unlock access to generic bedaquiline for all!
For more TB news, check out the latest edition of the TB Online Weekly Newsletter (#23, 20 July 2023) with the latest TB advocacy and research updates.
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