J&J greatly expands access to TB drug following push from famous novelist

A new deal will expand tuberculosis drug access to millions by allowing greater access to the drug bedaquiline, used to treat multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis. The patent on bedaquiline expired this week, but Johnson & Johnson, which manufactures it, will extend its exclusive rights to sell the drug through secondary patents. However, under a new deal, it will also allow generic bedaquiline to be sold and manufactured in most lower and middle-income countries. The deal was made through the company and the non-profit organization Global Drug Facility. “This is the first I’m aware of an innovative company like J&J giving a license to a unique entity like GDF,” Brenda Waning, chief of Global Drug Facility, told TIME magazine. “The license J&J gave us covers all low- and middle-income countries, with the exception of countries where they had a pre-existing agreement with a different generic supplier,” Waning said. “J&J has said despite those countries having a patent that remains in effect, we’re giving you permission to supply generics to those countries.” Read: WHO: Tuberculosis cases rise for the first time in years The announcement was sped up, Waning says, thanks to an unusual advocate—novelist John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars and other books, who has a substantial online following. He wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about the issue earlier this year, sharing, as he did on social media, stats like the fact that around 1.5 million people die from tuberculosis each year, even though it has been largely curable for more than seven decades. He also made a YouTube video about the issue and pushed for action from his followers on Twitter. He joined Doctors Without Borders’ Access Campaign, which published an open letter asking the company to give up secondary patents, and Indian activists who campaigned to have the secondary patent overturned in that country earlier this year. She says the deal had already been made at the time of Green’s campaign, but the pressure from social media led to its announcement date being moved up. Read: POP QUIZ: Tuberculosis treatment

J&J greatly expands access to TB drug following push from famous novelist

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