© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The Johnson & Johnson logo is seen at a company office in Brussels in Diegem, Belgium, September 21, 2023. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
GENEVA (Reuters) – Global health aid agency Unitaid has written to Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:) (J&J) CEO Joaquin Duato, urging him to “immediately take action” to expand access to the anti-diarrhoea drug bedaquiline. tuberculosis from the company, which is protected by patents that hinder generic alternatives.
Although J&J has already reduced the price of bedaquiline, which is used to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), Unitaid said this was an “incomplete solution” and that countries such as South Africa, Belarus and Ukraine would not comply. they were benefiting.
“Today, Johnson & Johnson continues to enforce secondary patents in many of the countries with the highest burden of DR-TB, hindering competition from generic manufacturers and preventing broader access to this critical medicine,” said the letter, signed by the executive director of Unitaid, Philippe Duneton.
The agency is urging J&J to eliminate all secondary patents and ensure lower prices are available to all countries with high tuberculosis cases.
J&J did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Unitaid spokesman said it was unusual for the aid agency to publish its communications with pharmaceutical company bosses and had done so because of the importance of the issue.
There was a high-level meeting on tuberculosis at the UN General Assembly earlier this month, and advocates hope for more attention to the disease and better access to treatments.
Tuberculosis, a bacterial disease that primarily affects the lungs, can be prevented and treated, but 10 million people contract it annually. About 1.6 million people died from tuberculosis in 2021, almost entirely in low- and middle-income countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, a form of the disease that does not respond to standard medications, is described by the WHO as a “public health crisis”, and only 1 in 3 people who needed treatment in 2021 managed to access it.
